Speakers

Multi-award-winning Mari Hannah is the author of the Stone & Oliver crime series, the Ryan & O'Neil series and the DCI Kate Daniels series. 

In July 2010, she won a Northern Writers' Award for Settled Blood. In 2013, she won the Polari First Book Prize for her debut, The Murder Wall. She was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library 2017 as the author of the most enjoyed collection of work in libraries. In 2019, she was awarded DIVA Wordsmith of the Year. 

In that same year, Mari was Programming Chair of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Festival. In 2020, Mari was named as DIVA 'Wordsmith of the Year' and won Capital Crime's 'Crime Book of the Year' award. 

She lives in Northumberland with her partner, a former murder detective. 

Flic Everett is a Mancunian writer who now lives in a cottage in the beautiful West Highlands with her patient husband and two deranged cocker spaniels. 

She still misses Manchester, and returns like a homing pigeon every month to see family and friends. She spends a lot of time writing on trains.

Flic has owned an award-winning vintage shop, guest-presented Woman’s Hour and was once a part-time tarot reader. 

She has a grown up son who makes her laugh more than anyone on earth, and she likes reading, painting, cooking, clothes, animals, Art Deco and rummaging in charity shops for bargains. 

Her greatest fear is being stranded without a book. She has spent many years as a freelance journalist and editor for national newspapers and magazines and can’t believe she’s finally allowed to make up stories from the comfort of her own home.

Ellen Gleeson is a Publishing Director at Bookouture, the UK’s leading digital publisher and part of Hachette UK.

As well as publishing a list of bestselling authors she sits on Bookouture’s Publishing Board, manages a team of editors, is a contributor to Bookouture’s writing and publishing courses, and has creative and strategic input across the Bookouture list.

She has published multiple bestsellers and worked with repeat authors across genres. 

Her first acquisition The Tuscan Secret by Angela Petch went on to sell 200,000 copies. She has published police procedural author Roger Stelljes, two-million copy selling thriller writer Kerry Wilkinson, and Freida McFadden’s Housemaid series, which has now sold 10 million units. The Housemaid has spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, won a Gold Nielsen Bestseller Award 2024, the International Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original Novel 2023, and was the third bestselling novel in the US in 2024. It will be released as a major motion picture in December 2025.

Ellen was shortlisted for the Editor of the Year Award at the British Book Awards for both 2023 and 2024. In 2023 she was named a Bookseller Rising Star, as well as a Hachette Hero of the Year. She has delivered 1-2-1 feedback at multiple Romantic Novelists Association conferences, been a Hachette Mentor, spoke on the London Book Fair: Writers' Summit panel, and appeared on the Dragon’s Pen panel at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2025.

Noelle Holten is an award-winning blogger at CrimeBookJunkie. 

She is a book publicist by day, and previously worked as a Senior Probation Officer for eighteen years, covering a variety of risk cases as well as working in a multi-agency setting.

She has three Hons BA's - Philosophy, Sociology (Crime & Deviance) and Community Justice - and a Masters in Criminology.

Noelle's hobbies include reading, attending as many book festivals as she can afford and sharing the booklove via her blog.

Michael J. Malone was born and brought up in the heart of Burns' country, just a stone's throw from the great man's cottage in Ayr. Well, a stone thrown by a catapult, maybe.

He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. 

BLOOD TEARS, his debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize (judge: Alex Gray) from the Scottish Association of Writers and when it was published he added a "J" to his name to differentiate it from the work of his talented U.S. namesake.

Graham Smith is a former farmworker and joiner. He’s turned his hand to many skills to put food on the table and clothes on his back. A life-long bibliophile, he eventually summoned the courage to try writing himself, and his Grant Fletcher novels (written as John Ryder) have drawn inspiration from authors such as Lee Child, Tom Cain, Zoe Sharp and Matt Hilton. When it comes to future novels, he says he has more ideas than time to write them.

When not writing, Graham enjoys spending time with his son, reading and socialising with friends. A fanatical supporter of his local football team, he can often be found shouting encouragement to men much younger and fitter than he is.