GEORGE BARKER READERS

Anthony Astbury, Poet, Anthologist, Director Greville Press

Elspeth Barker was born and brought up in Scotland. She was married to George Barker for the last twenty-eight years of his life. Her novel, 'O Caledonia' came out in 1991. It won four literary prizes and was shortlisted for the Whitbread first novel prize. She has contributed features and book reviews to the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, Harpers & Queen, Country Living, the Observer, the TLS and the London Review of Books. She has also edited an anthology, 'Loss' for Orion, and tutored on numerous creative writing courses, especially for the Arvon Foundation. Her new novel, 'The Art of Losing' will be published in 2008.

Sebastian Barker, Poet, Editor of the London Magazine

Oliver Bernard was born in 1925 in Buckinghamshire and spent the first half of his life in London and the Home Counties, apart from four year's service in the RAFVR (1943-1947) and protracted visits to France and Corsica. He has lived for the past forty years in Norfolk, where he was an English teacher and Drama Adviser. He has published three collections of poems, two books of translations and an autobiography: 'Getting Over It'. He was the eldest brother of Bruce Bernard, the picture editor and photographer and Jeffrey Bernard, the Spectator columnist.

Bill Troop's first play was directed when he was 17 by John Vaccaro, founder of the Playhouse of the Ridiculous. He is a writer, a photo chemist, a classical pianist and a connoisseur of labradors. He is currently working on an autobiography of a black labrador bitch in the manner of Henry James.

Edward Farrelly, Son of George Barker

Nigel Foxell, Author of fiction, criticism, and travel books.

Eddie Linden, friend of Barker, poet, longtime editor of Aquarius