Isaac Asimov, world maestro of science fiction, was born in Russia near Smolensk in 1920 and was brought to the United States by his parents three years later. He grew up in Brooklyn where he went to grammar school and at the age of eight he gained his citizen papers. A remarkable memory helped him finish high school before he was sixteen. He then went on to Columbia University and resolved to become a chemist rather than follow the medical career his father had in mind for him.

He graduated in chemistry and after a short spell in the Army he gained his doctorate in 1949 and qualified as an instructor in biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine where he became Associate Professor in 1955, doing research in nucleic acid. Increasingly, however, the pressures of chemical research conflicted with his aspirations in the literary field, and in 1958 he retired to full-time authorship while retaining his connection with the University. Asimov's fantastic career as a science fiction writer began in 1939 with the appearance of a short story, `Marooned Off Vesta', in Amazing Stories.

Thereafter he became a regular contributor to the leading SF magazines of the day including Astounding, Astonishing Stories, Super Science Stories and Galaxy. He won the Hugo Award four times and the Nebula Award once. With nearly five hundred books to his credit and several hundred articles, Asimov's output was prolific by any standards.

Apart from his many world-famous science fiction works, Asimov also wrote highly successful detective mystery stories, a four-volume History of North America, a two-volume Guide to the Bible, a biographical dictionary, encyclopaedias, textbooks and an impressive list of books on many aspects of science, as well as two volumes of autobiography. Isaac Asimov died in 1992 at the age of 72.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of the most important voices of our time. Barbara Kingsolver’s previous fourteen works of fiction and non-fiction have been translated into dozens of languages and earned a devoted readership.

She won the Orange Prize in 2010 for The Lacuna and her novel Flight Behaviour was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

In 2000 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal, her country's highest honour for service through the arts. Before she made her living as a writer, Kingsolver earned degrees in biology and worked as a scientist. She now lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia.

Anne Lamott is the New York Times bestselling author of a number of non-fiction books, including Help, Thanks, Wow; Small Victories; Stitches and Bird by Bird. She is also the author of several novels, including Imperfect Birds and Rosie. A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California.

Theodor Seuss Geisel better known to his millions of fans as Dr. Seuss was born the son of a park superintendent in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904.

After studying at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and later at Oxford University in England, he became a magazine humorist and cartoonist, and an advertising man.

He soon turned his many talents to writing children's books, and his first book `And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street' was published in 1937.

His greatest claim to fame was the one and only `The Cat in the Hat', published in 1957, the first of a successful range of early learning books known as Beginner Books.

Born in the US to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan failed her mother's expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She settled on writing fiction.

Her novels are ‘The Joy Luck Club’, ‘The Kitchen God's Wife’, ‘The Hundred Secret Senses’, ‘The Bonesetter's Daughter’, and ‘Saving Fish from Drowning’, all New York Times bestsellers and the recipient of various awards.

She is also the author of a memoir, ‘The Opposite of Fate’, two children's books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, and numerous articles for magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazar. Her work has been translated into 35 languages, from Spanish, French, and Finnish to Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew.