Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Salford. Her major publications include Where No Man Has Gone Before: Women and Science Fiction (Routledge, 1991), Theorising the Fantastic ( Arnold, 1996), Contemporary Women's Writing and the Fantastic (Palgrave, 2000), A Readers' Guide to George Eliot (Palgrave, 2000), Fantasy Fiction (Continuum, 2005). She is currently working on a book on The New Women's Writing (with Sarah Gamble) and a comparative project exploring the relationship between science and environmentalism in the writings of Edward Lear and Beatrix Potter.

Reader in Twentieth Century Literature at De Montfort University. Her teaching includes courses on Contemporary Poetry, Postcolonialism - which incorporates contemporary British Asian writers, Women's Writing and an MA module Gender and Modernism. Her recent publications include '"For older sisters are very sobering things": contemporary poets and the female affiliation complex' ( Feminist Review 62. Summer 1999: 6-20), Women, Modernism and British Poetry 1910-39 (2002), and A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry, (co-authored with Alice Entwistle, Cambridge University Press, 2005). In September, 05, she hosted the first of a seminar series on 'Women and Poetry in the 21 st Century'.

Professor in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her interests lie in contemporary women's writing and the history of feminist literary criticism. She has developing interests in the work of Pierre Bourdieu and women's relation to intellectualism. She has published a number of essays on individual contemporary women writers - for example, Byatt, Shields, Atwood, Walker, Adrienne Rich. Recent publications include A Concise Companion to Feminist Theory (Blackwell, 2003) and Figuring the Woman Author in Contemporary Fiction (Palgrave, 2005), a study of the continuing fascination of the woman author as a character in contemporary fiction.

Reader in English and Gender, and Director of the Centre for Research into Gender and Culture in Society (GENCAS) at the University of Wales, Swansea. She has a particular interest in the writing of Angela Carter, on whom she has published two book-length studies: Angela Carter: Writing From the Front Line (Edinburgh University Press, 1997), and Angela Carter: A Literary Life (Palgrave, 2005). She is also the editor of Angela Carter: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism (Palgrave, 2001) and of The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism (Routledge,2001. Current research projects include The New Women's Writing (with Lucie Armitt), and a cultural history of widowhood.

Anniversary Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of York. Her research centres on research methodologies and interdisciplinarity, women in Europe, Women's Studies as a discipline, and on women's contemporary cultural production. Among her recent publications are Doing Women's Studies: Employment Opportunities, Personal Impacts and Social Consequences (ed. London: Zed Books, 2005), Employment, Equal Opportunities and Women's Studies: Women's Experiences in Seven European Countries (ed. Königstein: Ulrike Helmer Verlag, 2004), Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women's Studies (co-ed.London: Zed Books, 2002), and Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain (Cambridge University Press 2003). She is co-founding editor of the journal Feminist Theory (Sage).

Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature at the University of Southampton. Her research interests lie in twentieth and twenty-first century women's writing and in the relationship between medicine and culture. She has published essays on feminist theory and on many individual writers including Angela Carter, Esther Freud, Helen Fielding, Doris Lessing and Michè le Roberts. Her books include Virginia Woolf (1994), A Study of the Woman's Novel in the Twentieth Century (Hysterical Fictions, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000) and most recently A Cultural History of Pregnancy: Pregnancy, Medicine and Culture, 1750-2000 (Palgrave, 2004) Her current interests include theoretical and fictional responses to new reproductive technologies and the cultural implications of twentieth-century genetic science.

Professor in English and Women's Studies at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. She is the author of 'Ladies, Please Don't Smash These Windows': Women's Writing, Feminism and Social Change 1918-1938 (1995) and Contemporary Women's Writing: From The Golden Notebook to The Color Purple (2000). She has edited a volume of essays on British Women Writers of the 1930s and co-edited a volume of essays on the women's suffrage movement with June Purvis and a festschrift to Margot Heinemann with David Margolies as well as a critical edition of Ellen Wilkinson's novel, Clash with Ian Haywood. Her research interests are in late Victorian and early twentieth-century women's writing, the 1930s, the literature and history of the women's suffrage movement, working-class writing, and autobiography.

Paulina retired last year from the English Department at the University of Warwick, and now teaches for the MA in Gender Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She has long-standing interests in the field of contemporary women's fiction, lesbian narrative and feminist/queer theory. Her publications include Contemporary Women's Fiction: Narrative Practice and Feminist Theory (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989); Contemporary Lesbian Writing: Dreams Desire Difference (Open University Press, 1993) and Lesbian Gothic: Transgressive Fictions (Cassell/ Continuum, 1999). Forthcoming publications include essays on 'Queer Transformations: Renegotiating the Abject in Anglo -American Women's Fiction' and 'Jeanette Winterson and the Lesbian Postmodern'.

Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leicester. She teaches twentieth century and contemporary literature and contributes two modules to the MA in Modern Literature: 'The 1980s' and 'Literature and Gender'. Her research focuses on contemporary women writers, feminism and queer theory, and she has published essays on Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Michele Roberts and Jeanette Winterson. She is author of Kate Atkinson's Behind The Scenes at the Museum: A Reader's Guide (Continuum, 2002) and edited Contemporary British Women Writers (Boydell & Brewer, 2004).

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Contemporary Women's Writing at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her role involves acting as secretary to CWWN and editorial assistant for Contemporary Women's Writing. She completed her PhD at the University of Toronto in 2003. It explored parody theory in relation to Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and Toni Morrison. Since then she has taught at the University of Winnipeg, Canada and Nagoya University of Business and Commerce, Japan. In 2007, she helped to organize the Second International Doris Lessing Conference at Leeds Metropolitan University and is currently co-editing two issues of Doris Lessing Studies with Susan Watkins based on that conference. She also has work forthcoming in a book collection drawn from the First International Doris Lessing Conference.

Reader in English Literature, Leeds Metropolitan University. Her main research interests are in the field of twentieth-century women's fiction and feminist theory. She is the author of Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice (Palgrave Mamcillan, 2001) and has co-edited, with Mary Eagleton, a special issue of The Journal of Gender Studies on 'The Future of Fiction: The Future of Feminism'. She is currently working on a new monograph on Doris Lessing for Manchester University Press, looking particularly at the treatment of 'race', nation, gender and genre in Lessing's writing. Susan organised the Second International Doris Lessing conference, which was held at Leeds Metropolitan University in July 2007. A second area of her current research considers fiction and notoriety. She has co-edited, with Dr Jago Morrison (University of Chichester), a collection of essays entitled Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere for Palgrave Macmillan. The book discusses texts from throughout the English-speaking world that were notorious or controversial at the time of publication.

Professor of English and Women's Studies at De Montfort University in Leicester. Her main interests are in Second Wave feminist thought (and beyond), twentieth and twenty-first century women's writing, popular fiction, feminism and popular culture, literary adaptations and bras. Her books include Modern Feminist Thought (1995), Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text (ed. With D.Cartmell, 1999), Overloaded (2000), Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary: A Reader's Guide (2002), 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies (with J.Pilcher, 2004) and The Feminist Bestseller (2005) and The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen (with D.Cartmell, 2007).

Professor and Head of the Centre for Learning and Teaching at the University of Brighton. Her principal research interests are in twentieth century women's writing, particularly postcolonial writing and popular fictions and she has published Postcolonial and African American women's writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), Guides to Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Angela Carter (2000-2003, Hodder) and a companion to Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. She is currently writing Key Concepts in Postcolonial Writing (for Palgrave Macmillan) and Horror (for Continuum). Gina also teaches, supervises, researches and publishes in learning and teaching areas, specialising in postgraduate study and supervision and has published The Postgraduate Research Handbook (2001) and The Good Supervisor (2005) (both Palgrave Macmillan).