Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was born in London. She became a central figure in The Bloomsbury Group, an informal collective of British writers, artists and thinkers. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a writer and social reformer. She wrote many works of literature which are now considered masterpieces, including Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves.
Erica Wagner is an author and journalist, born in New York City, but a resident of London.
She attended Cambridge and the University of East Anglia, where she was taught by Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. She went on to become the Literary Editor of The Times from 1996 to 2013. Erica is the author of Gravity (1997), a collection of short stories; Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters (2000); and Seizure (2007). As well as editing First Light she is working on a new book, The Chief Engineer: A Biography of Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built Brooklyn Bridge.
She has judged many literary prizes, including the Orange Prize, Whitbread First Novel Prize, Forward Prize for poetry and twice the Man Booker Prize.
