Jane Bluett is an English teacher, currently on the MA in Writing at NTU, of indifferent age and varied interests. Poetry is a passion and a pleasure — she hopes you like hers.

Christopher Cartwright is currently in his first year at university studying Chemistry. In his spare time he snowboards and is President of the NTU Snowboard Club.

Stephen Chan is the Dean of Humanities at Nottingham Trent University.

Nicola Cooper is 20 years old, originally from Leicester. She is currently in the second year of a humanities degree in English and Psychology at Nottingham Trent University.

Richard Goodson is a Libran. He is 5'11" tall, weighs 11( stone, has grey-green/grey-blue eyes, and would like to travel, help sick animals, and bring peace and love to the world.

Owen Gregory writes poems usually but has, against all advice, common sense and nature, begun a novel, These Last Days. He is trying to finish it before it finishes him.

Gus Gresham is currently an MA Writing student at NTU, is unpublished, unattached, unassuming, and, like Ben (Dustin Hoffman) in The Graduate, "a little worried about my future".

Cathy Grindrod is an Administrator at NTU and Editor of Poetry Nottingham International. She has published poems in magazines and anthologies and been a prize-winner in national poetry competitions. Her anthology is Something the Heart Can't Hold (1995).

David Jackson taught English for nearly 20 years, then became involved in changing men's politics and creativity. Recent publications include Unmasking Masculinity: a Critical Autobiography and poems in Sinews of the Heart: a Book of Men's Writing (Five Leaves).

Richard Johnson taught cultural studies at Birmingham University 1974-1993. He's researched and written on a variety of social science subjects. He discovered poetry as a way of grieving when his wife died in 1992.

Helen Purcell-Houldsworth has had poems published in Iota, Poetry Nottingham and others. She worked for four years for a local newspaper and has written three unpublished children's novels.

Carmen Templeton works as Secretary for the NTU English Department and is studying Social Science with the OU. She has a passion for animals and recently visited Maui to watch humpback whales.

Bob Tristram was born in 1937 in Leeds and retired from teaching in 1994. His work has appeared in Envoi, Proof, Pennine-Platform, Poetry PQ, Poetry Nottingham, Poetry Monthly and The Guardian.

Helen Whitehead is an editor, technical writer and MA Writing student. She won a story competition in Woman's Realm at the age of 10 and has been trying to fulfil that potential ever since.

Richard Williams is passionate about cats but hates conceit and would never refer to himself in the third person. He writes in crayon and gets out next week.

Gordon Wilson was a haddock in a previous life and writes appropriately. His "Nottingham Trent" experience justifies Thomas Hardy's faith in coincidence. He anticipates great sales of Anatomy among his former students.

Gregory Woods is a Reader in Lesbian and Gay Studies at the Nottingham Trent University. He is the author of We Have the Melon (Carcanet, 1992), among others.