Tim Noakes is Professor in the Discovery Health Chair of Exercise and Sports Science at UCT, Director of the UCT/MRC Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine and co-founder of the Sports Science Institute of S Africa. He is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and was elected a Fellow of UCT for sustained excellence in original scientific work. He was the team doctor for the Proteas Cricket Team in the 1996 Cricket

Reuben Riffel: Franschhoek chef at Reuben’s, author of Reuben Cooks … Food is Time Travel … (more to come)

Capetonian Henrietta Rose-Innes has written two novels, Shark’s Egg and The Rock Alphabet, and has edited an anthology of S African writing, Nice Times! Her short stories have appeared in various local and international collections. Her writing has been translated into German and Romanian, and Dream Homes, a collection of short pieces, appeared in German translation in 2008. In 2007, she won the Southern African PEN short story award and in 2008 the Caine Prize for African Writing, for which she was shortlisted in 2007. In 2007-08 she was a Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and she has held writing residencies in Germany, Switzerland, the USA and at UCT. Previously a literary editor, she now works part-time as a creative writing teacher at UCT and for the online SA and NZ Writers’ College.

Alex Smith was born in Cape Town, where she currently resides. She is not married and has no children, which allows her to indulge her love for adventure and travel. Her first book, Algeria’s Way, was inspired by her experience of doing the El Camino de Compostello pilgrimage in Spain. Her latest book, Drinking From the Dragon’s Well, is part memoir, part travelogue about teaching English and travelling in China. Recently she spent some time in Vietnam.

Roger Smith was born in Johannesburg, and has written, produced and directed film and TV. His credits as a screenwriter are numerous and his work is seen regularly on African television. His first thriller, Mixed Blood, was published simultaneously in the US, the UK, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and later in Germany. He is now lives in Cape Town and is writing his second thriller, Wake Up Dead, to be published in 2010.

Writer and creative writing teacher Dianne Stewart from Durban is the award-winning author of children’s books and teenage novels, many translated into African and other languages, and editorand compiler of South African anthologies, including Durban in a Word. For her MA in S African literature she collected the songs (oral poetry) that rural woman sing as they are working in the fields, both in isiZulu and English. Part of the thesis was included in Women Writing Africa :The Southern Region published by Feminist Press in New York and then Wits.

Vikas Swarup was born in Allahabad, India, in a family of lawyers. After university where he was a champion debater, graduating with distinction, he joined the Indian Foreign Service, motivated by an interest in international relations and a desire to explore different cultures. In his diplomatic career, Vikas has been posted to Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia and the United Kingdom. Since August 2006 he has been India’s Deputy High Commissioner in Pretoria. Q&A, his first novel, was recently made into a film Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, which has taken the world by storm and won many awards. His second, Six Suspects, has also been optioned for a film. Apart from reading, Vikas enjoys listening to music and playing cricket, tennis and table tennis. His wife Aparna is an artist who has held exhibitions in India and abroad. They have two sons Aditya and Varun.