Jeff Barrett – Co-founder, Caught by the River

Robin Turner – Co-founder, Caught by the River

Andrew Walsh – Co-founder, Caught by the River

John Andrews – buys and sells vintage fishing tackle for the soul at www.andrewsofarcadia.com and on his stall at old Spitalfields market every Thursday. He also writes about angling history for Caught by the River who publish the sporadic ‘letters from arcadia’ that he does hin collaboration with Dexter Petley. His other writing can be found in publications as diverse as The Times, Classic Angling, The Old Town Evening Star and Waterlog.

Jon Berry – Jon Berry – began fishing at the age of five, catching a tiny trout on a Highland stream. For thirty-five years he has tried to replicate the brilliance of that moment by chasing coarse, game and sea fish in all parts of the British Isles. I am currently working on my second book, A Train To Catch, for the Medlar Press. My first book, A Can of Worms, was published in 2007. When not fishing or writing, I am a school teacher, failed guitarist and supporter of Southampton F.C.

Will Burns – Will was born in London and raised in Buckinghamshire. He didn’t finish his English degree, choosing instead to start a band with his brother. He worked in factories, cleaning windows and painting houses before settling in the music industry. He likes sports and ornithology and is proud to be Poet-In-Residence at Caught By The River and Festival No.6. His poems have been published by Structo Magazine, South Bank Poetry, The Illustrated Ape and the Independent Online, and in 2014 he was named as one of the four Faber & Faber New Poets.

Andy Childs – currently works as a distribution consultant for several record labels and artists. Previously he has had over 35 years experience working in the music business – as editor of Zigzag magazine, then in various roles at United Arists, EMI, Demon Records, Rough Trade and Rykodisc. Spends as much time reading and writing these days as listening to music and sometimes wishes he’d been able to pursue a parallel career in publishing as well. Lives in Somerset with his wife Karen.

Roger Clapham – hasn’t been fishing since he was a child in North Yorkshire. He lives in East London with his wife and enjoys ale in all its hues, escaping the city on his bike or on foot, and spending too long in record shops. He works in print media and crosses the River Lea every day on the way to work.

Mathew Clayton – lives in the village of Kingston in Sussex. During the day he is an editorial director at Michael O’Mara Books, at night he is a co-director of the Port Eliot festival. He commissioned the first Caught by the River book and was guest editor of issue four of the Caught by the River fanzine.

Frank Cottrell Boyce – is a screenwriter, novelist and actor.

Tim Dee – Tim Dee writes regularly for Caught by the River. He is a writer and birdwatcher. ‘The Running Sky’ was published in 2009, ‘Four Fields’ in 2013. He co-edited ‘The Poetry of Birds’ (2009) with the poet Simon Armitage. His is at work on two new books: ‘Green Room’ about the Spring in Europe and ‘Landfill’ about men who watch gulls. He has also worked as a BBC radio producer for twenty six years. He makes mostly poetry programmes and radio dramas for BBC Radio 4.

He is married to a behavioural ecologist who works on cuckoos in Zambia and Mozambique. They live in Bristol and the Fens mostly but sometimes in the last but one house before Antarctica on the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.

Pete Fowler – Artist, musician, sound recordist, dapper chap and longtime Friend of the River. Pete Fowler is one half of Seahawks and lord and creator of Monsterism Island.

Melissa Harrison is a writer, nature geek, weekend walker, dog botherer, proud feminist, sometime photographer and author of two novels: Clay (Bloomsbury, 2013; winner of the Portsmouth First Fiction award) and At Hawthorn Time (Bloomsbury, 2015). She lives in South London, and when she’s not writing she edits copy and kicks butt at long-running dance music magazine, Mixmag. Apart from sticklebacks and blennys in 99p neon nets, she has never caught a fish.

Richard King has worked at the heart of the independent music business for twenty years. He is an honorary founding partner of The Do Lectures, the co-editor of Loops and lurks in the background of Domino Radio. How Soon Is Now?, his first book, is a history of British independent music and is published by Faber. He has written for The Guardian and The Observer among many other publications and is a regular contributor to Caught by the River

Ceri Levy – is a documentary film maker, writer and producer who is best known for the documentary film Bananaz about the band Gorillaz. Ceri is at present working on a film about the way birds inspire and affect people. It’s title is The Bird Effect.

Amy Liptrot – grew up on a sheep farm on Orkney and has lived in Edinburgh and London and worked as a journalist. She recently returned to the islands and is currently employed by the RSPB on a project locating and protecting the endangered corncrake. amyliptrot.tumblr.com/

Ben McCormick – Landlord of the Beer Advent Calendar, irregular long-distance cyclist and resident DJ at monthly night Aardvark to Zebra in Shoreditch. Still trying to finish his memoirs on a formative French carp fishing trip in 2002 and itching to get back to the riverbank again.

Jon McNaught – is a Printmaker and Illustrator living in Bristol, he is also the author of the comic books ‘Birchfield Close’ and ‘Pebble Island’ (published by Nobrow press in 2010), His third comic book Dockwood was published in Autumn 2012.

Ben Myers – is a journalist and award-winning novelist. His books include Beastings (2014), Pig Iron (2012) and Richard (2012). He has written for publications including The Guardian, Mojo, NME, New Statesman and others. He lives in rural Yorkshire.
www.benmyers.com

Jeb Loy Nichols has been crowned “the high priest of country cool” by Rolling Stone magazine. Living and working in mid–Wales for the past 15 years, he’s produced CDs, albums, exhibitions of prints and three books, all from his remote small holding. His most recent LP – The Jeb Loy Nichols Special was called ‘an instant classic” by Mojo Magazine. A book of prints, I Need You To Tell Me Something Different, was called “breathtaking – all hail the New Pastrolism” by Art Scene. As a printmaker, he’s had successful exhibitions in New York, Berlin, Tokyo, London, and Cardiff. He continues to record music, make art, and most importantly, plant trees.

Kevin Pearce – Writing. Music. Connections.

Dexter Petley – born in the Weald of Kent, lives in a caravan in France; novelist, translator, angling writer; radical anti-social surviving on low energy, permaculture and mushroom gathering. www.dexterpetley.com

Kavel Rafferty – is an illustrator living in Barcelona (originally from the UK), where she has a small gallery. She likes Northern soul and flea markets.
www.kavels.net

Charles Rangeley-Wilson – was once a painter and is now a writer. He went to art school at the Ruskin in Oxford and was head of Art at Glenalmond College before he took up writing. He has published two books with Random House, Somewhere Else and The Accidental Angler and writes features for magazines and newspapers. He has worked on two films for the BBC, most recently Fish! A Japanese Obsession, a sideways look at Japan and the Japanese through a shared obsession with all things fishy. He is a passionate about conservation and advises WWF UK, The Wild Trout Trust and the Norfolk Rivers Trust.
His latest book about a lost river – Silt Road – was published in April 2013 by Chatto and Windus.
He lives in Norfolk.

Neil Sentance – originally from the farmlands of Lincolnshire, wouldn’t know one end of a fishing rod from the other. Formerly, he could often be spotted propping up bars in London, drinking Batemans or Black Sheep, and dreaming about muddy meadows, woodlands and riverways. Happily, these days he is mostly to be found with his wife and children in the wilds of west Dorset, editing history books and walking the coast paths.

Matt Sewell – Artist Matt Sewell is an avid ornithologist and a regular contributor to Caught by the River. He has illustrated for the Guardian, Big Issue and Sambrook’s Brewery, painted underpasses for the RSPB, and exhibited in London, Manchester, Tokyo and Paris.

Nick Small – Film fettlin’, music video meddlin’, photography peddlin’, bilberry pickin’, boreal forest dwellin’, wild river lovin’ man o’ the North.

Martha Sprackland – has been co-founder and poetry editor of Cake magazine and assistant poetry editor for Faber & Faber. Her poems have appeared in the LRB, New Humanist, The Poetry Review, Poetry London and elsewhere, and have been anthologised in Salt’s Best British Poetry series. Twice a winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, in 2014 she was also given an Eric Gregory Award. Martha is a poet-in-residence for Caught by the River. A pamphlet is forthcoming from Rack Press in early 2017.

Brian David Stevens – Brian is a photographer working in London. He was born in Cambridge of Welsh parents and brought up in Yorkshire as a cruel genetic experiment. He is currently photographing the British coastline and ancient woodland. Brian is about to complete a ten year project shooting war veterans entitled ‘They that are Left’ http://driftingcamera.blogspot.com/ http://www.briandavidstevens.com

Cheryl Tipp is Curator of Wildlife & Environmental Sounds at the British Library and a contributor to the Caught by the River collection, On Nature. Cheryl was the guest editor of issue 6 of An Antidote To Indifference.

Emma Warren – was a founding contributor to Jockey Slut. She now makes documentaries for BBC Radio when not working as Editorial Mentor at youth-run publication LIVE Magazine. Likes to bring together things previously not brought together. Blog: emmawarren.wordpress.com

Chris Watson is one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, and for Touch he edits his field recordings into a filmic narrative. For example. the unearthly groaning of ice in an Icelandic glacier is a classic example of, in Watson’s words, putting a microphone where you can’t put your ears. He was born in Sheffield where he attended Rowlinson School and Stannington College (now part of Sheffield College). In 1971 he was a founding member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist for film, tv & radio, Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post production.

Chris Yates is Britain’s foremost angling writer and one of the patron saints of Caught by the River. His latest book, Nightwalk, is a fish-free musing on all things nocturnal. Of the book, Chris says, “some of my best memories happened while I was walking through the dark. The night is an uninhabited land and when I’m there it’s only me and the true natives, the owls, deer, badgers, glow worms and other creatures that I never get to identify.”

Rob St. John is a writer and musician from East Lancashire. His writing on the environment, music and art (or some combination of these) has pitched up in a number of places including The Ecologist, The List, The Daily Telegraph, United Nations Our World and National Geographic Online, amongst others. Playing either solo, with Edinburgh bands eagleowl and Meursault, or with projects like Water of Life and Folklore Tapes, Rob’s released a bunch of records and toured across Europe and America. He’s happiest sea trout fishing at night on the River Hodder.