The Grande Dames of Letters

Dame Mary Beard is Professor Emerita of Classics at Cambridge, and the classics editor of the TLS. She has worldwide academic acclaim. Her previous books include bestselling Wolfson Prize-winner Pompeii, Confronting the Classics, SPQR, Women & Power, Twelve Caesars and most recently Emperor of Rome. She has made numerous television series and her books have been published in over 30 languages. 

Anne Enright has written two collections of stories, one book of non-fiction, and six novels, including The Gathering (2007 Man Booker Prize winner), The Forgotten Waltz (awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction) and The Green Road (Bord Gáis Energy Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award winner). She was appointed as the first Laureate for Irish Fiction in 2015 and received the Irish PEN Award in 2018. The Wren, The Wren is her seventh novel. 

Jane Smiley has published 18 works of fiction, six non-fiction books and eight novels for young adults. Her best-selling novel A Thousand Acres was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Fiction in 1992. PEN Centre USA recognised her remarkable contribution to American literary culture with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. Her next novel, Lucky, will be published in April 2024.

Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge and eight other critically acclaimed and awarded novels, including The Burgess Boys, My Name is Lucy Barton, Oh William and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. Her most recent book is Lucy by the Sea.

Julia Baird is an author and journalist. She co-hosts ABC's The Drum on ABC and writes columns for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Harper's Bazaar. Julia has written three books - Media Tarts, Victoria, her critically acclaimed biography of Queen Victoria, and multi-award-winning bestseller Phosphorescence.