James Naughtie (Chair)

James Naughtie is one of the country’s best-known broadcasters. During his career, Naughtie has anchored BBC radio coverage of British and American presidential elections and has written and introduced numerous documentaries and programmes for BBC Radio and television. As an author, he has written two books on contemporary politics, The Rivals – The Story of a Political Marriage, and The Accidental American – Tony Blair and the Presidency. His book, The Making of Music, based on his Radio 4 series, an account of the Western classical tradition, was published in paperback this year. Naughtie is connected with a number of arts organisations and charities, is a member of the advisory board of the Edinburgh International Festival, a patron of the Prince of Wales Foundation for Children and the Arts, a trustee of the Classical Opera Company, a trustee of the Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries and a patron of Southbank Sinfonia. In 2008 he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Stirling. He is also a former chairman of judges of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.

Lucasta Miller

Lucasta Miller is best known as the author of The Bronte Myth and has worked for many years as a critic, most recently for The Guardian Review. She is now writing a second book, Secrets and Lives, which will be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. She is married to the tenor Ian Bostridge, has two children.

John Mullan

John Mullan is Professor of English at University College London. He is the author of Anonymity. A Secret History of English Literature (Faber) and How Novels Work (Oxford University Press). He has published widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. He is also a broadcaster and journalist, writing a regular column on contemporary fiction for The Guardian. He was a judge for Best of the Booker in 2008.

Sue Perkins

Sue Perkins is a comedian, presenter, broadcaster and scriptwriter. She regularly appears on radio and television programmes such as Newsnight Review, Have I Got News For You, Just a Minute and The News Quiz. Sue currently stars in the second series of the critically acclaimed BBC2 show, The Supersizers Go, in which she eats offal and cow brains in restrictive corsetry. Last year Sue won the BBC Maestro competition earning her the opportunity to conduct at the Last Night of the Proms in Hyde Park in front of 40,000 people.

Michael Prodger

Michael Prodger has been a literary journalist for many years and is Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph. He also writes regularly on art for a number of publications, including The Sunday Telegraph, Standpoint and The Spectator. He was a judge on the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006.