Northern Noir at the Bar

Liz Mistry, moved to Yorkshire the late ’80s, She crafts gritty crime fiction rooted in Bradford. Childhood tales from Scotland infuse her work with intrigue, inspiring her latest series set in West Lothian. Battling clinical depression and anxiety, she intertwines mental health themes into her narratives, influenced by her MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University. Completing a doctorate in creative writing, she explores representation in her beloved genre. Supported by her husband, three children, and a vast British Indian family, Liz finds solace in Scottish and Yorkshire landscapes, travel, music, and blogging on crime fiction.

M.W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving ten years later to complete a social work degree. Seventeen years after taking up a probation officer role in Cumbria, at the rank of assistant chief officer, he became a full-time author. He is a Sunday Times bestseller and, for his Cumbria-set Washington Poe series, a recipient of the 2019 Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, the 2022 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2023. The series has now been translated into twenty-seven languages.

Trevor Mark Thomas was born in Manchester. While he was looking after his dad he decided to enrol in the creative writing MA at Manchester Metropolitan University. It was there he wrote his first book The Bothy which was published by Salt. His second book Dry Cleaning came out last year.