Jerry Pinto (born 1966) is a writer of poetry, prose and children’s fiction in English. He is currently at work on various projects, including short fiction and a novel. His collection of poems, Asylum and Other Poems appeared in 2003. He has also co-edited Confronting Love (2005), a book of contemporary Indian love poetry in English. His poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets and Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics. He lives in Mumbai.

What makes Pinto’s stand unusual is that he does not set himself up as mere witness of this historic debasement of the imagination. Instead, he acknowledges that he is also culpable in perpetuating this largesse of waste. When he tells young poet aspirants to ‘RUN’, this is not the lofty advice of a sage bard and oracle, but the admission of a wry, weathered word-merchant, aware…

Joanne Harris is best known for her 1999 novel, Chocolat, which focuses on a young single mother running a chocolate shop in a French village. The novel was adapted into a popular film that premiered in 2000.

According to her website her hobbies include “mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system”, although she also enjoys obfuscation, sleaze, rebellion, witchcraft, armed robbery, tea and biscuits. She is not above bribery and would not necessarily refuse an offer involving exotic travel or pink champagne. She works from a shed in her garden, plays bass in the band she first joined when she was 16, is writing a novella for Dr Who and lives with her husband and daughter in a little wood in Yorkshire.”

Source: Famous Birthdays and Joanne Harris

Blackberry Wine was written by Joanne Harris. It was published in 2000.