The people who now vote in the polls coaches and writers do not have enough time to watch a lot of football. We wanted to take advantage of all this experience and expertise we have in these great former coaches. Who better to judge teams than the people who have coached the game?

The past is full of examples of renegade writers who were overlooked in their time not only because their work didn't fit neatly into potted categories but also because they avoided the self-promotional efforts of their peers.

The Orange prize has been pivotal in the careers of many women writers - it's given them that extra push, and that extra dollop of confidence.

Theoretically, our writers will come to us with nothing. And they will leave with the first draft of a novel, a portfolio of poems or even the first act of a play. The biggest monster of writing is the first blank 250 pages and the program is here to help confront those challenges.

The original sense of the word 'influence' is 'to flow into.' For the most part, these writers that I admire... their style flows into me without my intervention, which is what explains the broad range of writers who I've been compared with; it reflects my reading.