Sebastian Faulks CBE is widely hailed as one of the foremost writers of his generation, combining critical acclaim with wide appeal. His novels include the classic Birdsong (1993), which has sold more than three million copies and the recent Sunday Times Number One bestseller A Week in December. He has continued to reinvent himself and explore new themes with each book.

He is an inspiring speaker who can discuss his own creative process, and how his own extensive research and imagination are harnessed to create novels which are ambitious and original.

Sebastian worked in journalism before starting to write books. He was the first literary editor of the Independent and became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist for the Guardian (1992-8) and the Evening Standard (1997-9). He continues to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines. He wrote and presented the Channel 4 Television series Churchill's Secret Army, screened in 1999 and most recently presented a major four-part BBC 2 series celebrating the British novel and its characters, Faulks on Fiction.

He is well-known for his French trilogy, The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. The latter was made into a film starring Cate Blanchett in 2001. He is the author of a biography, The Fatal Englishman; a small book of literary parodies, Pistache; and the novels Human Traces, Engleby and A Week in December (a number one bestseller).

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Tavistock Clinic, Britain's oldest and most distinguished centre for psychotherapy, for the novel Human Traces and can speak about psychology, psychiatry, 'normality' and what makes us who we are. He also wrote the James Bond thriller Devil May Care (2008) in the style of Ian Fleming and can talk about Bond and the art of storytelling. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993, he was also appointed CBE for services to literature in 2002.