Jane Stevenson was born in London, and brought up in Beijing, London and Bonn. She currently lives in Aberdeenshire, where she is Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen. She is the author of a number of historical works, two collections of novellas, four novels, a biography of Edward Burra, and has written for Harper's, and the Guardian, and the Observer. Peter Davidson is Professor of Renaissance Studies in the University of Aberdeen and Hon. Keeper of the University's Renaissance Collections. He has published widely on literature, art and music as well as on wider matters of cultural history and art history.Marc Ellington is a recipient of the Saltire, Civic Trust and European Heritage Awards and is a Director of Historic Scotland, a Trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland and has been involved in developing and managing a number of major built heritage and landscape conservation and restoration initiatives in the UK and abroad.Daniel MacCannell, a graduate of Aberdeen University and UCLA's MFA-Screenwriting program, is a widely published non-fiction writer who has received the Jack Nicholson prize and been nominated for the Fotokem Maverick Award for his fictional work.