Liars Cramp

NIKI AGUIRRE has lived and travelled widely in the US, South America and Europe. She now resides in London. Niki studied English at the University of Illinois and graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck. She’s working on a collection of short stories due out in 2007, titled 29 Ways to Drown. Her novel, Transcending the Virtual, is due to be completed later this year.

RACHEL BRADFORD studied English Literature at UEA and Creative Writing at Birkbeck. She has a book of short stories entitled Still and is currently working on Plenty Good Enough, a novel about a broccoli cutting gang in Norfolk. She currently lives in North London with Michael the scouser and Connie the Staffordshire Bull Terrier and works at Alan Menzies Dog Training Centre.

MARY-LOUISE BUXTON was born on the Isle of Man in 1982. After completing her Bachelor’s degree in the UK, she was awarded the 2003 Ella Olesen Scholarship to study at the University of Idaho, USA. She is now based in London. ‘Mount Pleasant’ is her first published piece.

HARRIET FISHER has lived mainly in London, studied at UEA and Birkbeck and currently lives on the Isle of dogs. She writes short stories and is working on her first novel whilst distracting herself by writing more stories and setting up blogs. She also works as a teacher in a North London college.

MARIKO IWASAKI was born in San Francisco. At the age of six she came to live in the UK for five years, during which she picked up the English language and was also first exposed to creative writing. She has worked as a financial journalist for a US newswire company

ALISON HEATHWOOD McCORMACK is originally from New England, but spent seven years working as a location manager for film and television in Hollywood. She recently returned to New England to remind herself that it’s not England. She is a graduate of Northwestern University in Chicago.

FRANCES MERIVALE is working on her second novel, The Missing Track, about a failed 1960’s experimental musician forced to experiment with a new life after his house burns down. Her first novel is on the shelf, but the main character is a stalker and unlikely to remain ignored for too much longer. Frances works as a fundraiser for UNICEF and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck. She has published four short stories and is working intermittently on a collection called Audio Clive and the Misfits. Next year she hopes to join a banana cargo boat to start research for her next novel.

KATIE MORRIS is a native of San Francisco, California, the seventh child in a family of eight and a graduate of Columbia University in New York, where she studied US History. She just had a baby and so is writing less and less. She remains hopeful, however, that someday soon-ish she will put pen to page again with some regularity. Her novel in progress, Passage from La Caverna, is nearly finished. What she hopes will be her second novel, The Things We Cling To, is just barely off the ground.

NII AYIKWEI PARKES grew up in Ghana and worked as a food technologist before becoming a full-time performance poet. Co-founder of the Tell Tales short story initiative, his oeuvre includes the books eyes of a boy, lips of a man and M is for Madrigal, and Incredible Blues, a CD. He received a 2003 Arts Council Award for his recently completed novel The Cost of Red Eyes and is a former associate writer-in-residence at the BBC.

HARRY WHITEHEAD works in film and television. He has published poetry, short fiction, academic articles on anthropology, and he has a book on Nepalese tantric art coming out soon.