Bill Swainson is a publisher and editor with over forty year's experience in independant and mainstream publishing, editing a wide range of writers including Mourid Barghouti, Javier Cercas, Paul Durcan, Al Gore, A.C Grayling, Dermot Healy, Rachel Holmes, Amin Maalouf, Laurie Penny, Jacqueline Rose, Boualem Sansal, W.G. Sebald, Will Self and Juan Gabriel Vásquez. He was until recently Senior Comissioning Editor at Bloomsbury ( 2000-15). He has also worked at the Harvill Press, Fourth Estate, Allison & Busby & John Calder ( Publishers) Ltd. He is currently a literary consultant and freelance editor, working with, among others, Cannongate, Haus Publishing and the Gingko Library, MacLehose Press, The French Institute and the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Italy.