The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas (22 page)

Contributor Biographies

DAVID BADDIEL AND ARVIND ETHAN DAVID

David Baddiel is a comedian, novelist, documentary maker, and most recently screenwriter. Born and raised Jewish, and maintaining a deep affection for his Jewish heritage and identity, David’s Facebook religious views entry describes him as a “fundamentalist atheist.”

Arvind Ethan David is the producer behind a rash of recent British feature films, including 2009’s zombie-high-school movie,
Tormented
. Born and raised Catholic, Arvind’s Facebook religious views entry reads “Atheist. Humanist. Yogi. Bear.”

David and Arvind are currently collaborating on
The Infidel
, a feature film about a moderate Muslim man who discovers that he was adopted and is, in fact, Jewish. The film, which stars Omid Djalili, Richard Schiff, Archie Panjabi, and Matt Lucas, was released in the UK in April 2010.

JULIAN BAGGINI

Julian Baggini (www.julianbaggini.com) is editor and co-founder of the
Philosophers’
Magazine
(www.philosophersmag.com). He is the author of several books, including
Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind
(Granta),
Complaint
(Profile), and, most recently,
Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover?
(Granta). His monthly philosophy podcast is available on iTunes or via his website. He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the
Guardian
, the
Financial Times
,
Prospect
, and the
New Statesman
, and has also appeared as a character in two Alexander McCall-Smith novels.

SIÂN BERRY

Siân Berry (www.sianberry.org.uk) is a Green campaigner, writer, and politician. She was the Green Party candidate for London mayor in 2008 and helped set up the Alliance Against Urban 4×4s campaign group, famous for placing mock parking tickets on Chelsea Tractors throughout the capital and inspiring similar actions around the world.

In 2008, Siân published the 50 Ways series of four books on greener living, each giving fifty simple tips to reduce your impact on the planet and save cash in the process. Her new book, published in October 2009, makes the link between being green and saving money even clearer, and is simply called
Mend It!

CHARLIE BROOKER

Charlie Brooker (www.guardian.co.uk/charliebrooker) is a columnist, television scriptwriter, and broadcaster. He writes two weekly columns for the
Guardian
, including “Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn,” and produces, writes, and presents the satirical B
BC
4 shows
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe
and
Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe
. He created, wrote, and produced the zombie horror series
Dead Set
(E4, 2008) and co-wrote the Channel 4 sitcom
Nathan Barley
with Chris Morris, based on the eponymous character in his comic strip
TV Go Home
. He has just finished presenting the first series of Channel 4’s
You Have Been Watching
.

ED BYRNE

Ed Byrne (www.edbyrne.com) is one of the UK’s most successful stand-up comics. He has made numerous appearances on
Mock the Week
,
8 Out of 10 Cats
,
Never Mind the Buzzcocks
, Graham Norton’s
The Bigger Picture
, and
Have I Got News for You
, as well as performing on several sold-out tours of the UK. Ed has appeared five times on N
BC
’s
Late Night with Conan O’Brien
, released several dvDs including
Psychobabble
and
Pedantic and Whimsical
, hosted the Montreal Just for Laughs festival, and made his London West End debut in a two-week run at the New Ambassadors Theatre. He once starred in a
Father Ted
Christmas special as a grungy teenager.

JENNY COLGAN

Jenny Colgan (www.jennycolgan.com) is the author of nine best-selling novels, including
Amanda’s Wedding
and
West End Girls
. She also contributes to a variety of publications, from
The Times
to
Cosmopolitan
, and specializes in not being asked back onto B
BC
panel shows. No, not even
Quote Unquote
.

Jenny lives in France with her husband and three children and likes cycling, Scrabble, stand-up comedy, and playing the piano really badly. Her latest novel,
Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend
, is available from Sphere, and she writes a book blog on her website.

BRIAN COX

Professor Brian Cox began his career as a musician, playing keyboards with rock band D:Ream, who went on to have many Top 10 hits including New Labour’s election anthem “Things Can Only Get Better.” He is now a Royal Society research fellow, a professor at the University of Manchester, and a member of the high-energy physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. He is bes
t known to the public as the presenter of a number of science programs for the B
BC
.

RICHARD DAWKINS

Professor Richard Dawkins, FRS (www.richarddawkins.net), is an internationally renowned evolutionary biologist and ethologist and the author of numerous best-selling books, including
The Selfish Gene
,
The Blind Watchmaker
,
Unweaving the Rainbow
,
Climbing Mount Improbable
,
A Devil’s Chaplain
,
The Ancestor’s Tale
, and
The God Delusion.
He was the first holder of the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and has written and presented many television documentaries, including
Root of All Evil?
,
The Enemies of Reason
, and
The Genius of Charles Darwin.
His most recent book is
The Greatest Show on Earth
(Transworld).

NEIL DENNY

Neil Denny is the producer and co-host of the
Little Atoms
radio show (www.littleatoms.com). Created in 2005 by Neil Denny and Richard Sanderson, and currently hosted by Neil Denny and Padraig Reidy,
Little Atoms
is a live talk show about ideas. The show is based around ideas of the Enlightenment and promotes science, freedom of expression, skepticism, and humanism, although this means we often end up discussing superstition, religious fundamentalism, censorship, and conspiracy theory. The show is broadcast on Friday evenings at seven o’clock on London’s Resonance 104.4 FM. The
Little Atoms
Podcast is available on iTunes.

NICK DOODY

Nick Doody is a stand-up comic and writer. He has written for
8 Out of 10 Cats
, FAQ U, and
The Friday Night Project,
and regularly writes for
The Late Edition
,
The Now Show
, and
Armando Iannucci’s Charm Offensive
. While still a student, Nick supported the late cult American comic Bill Hicks on tour, and later wrote a biography of him titled
Telling the Truth, Laughing: The Life and Works of Bill Hicks
. Nick has recently had an original series,
Bigipedia
, broadcast on Radio 4. He regularly performs comedy at secular events and supports secular causes.

EMERY EMERY

Emery Emery (www.emeryemery.com) became a stand-up comedian at the age of eighteen, touring the United States and Europe for twenty years. After editing the feature film
The Aristocrats
, Emery built a second career directing and producing for film and television.

Emery’s life partner, Laney, is HIV positive. Laney and Emery are proud to be a serodiscordant couple. Through diligent safe sexual practices, Emery has remained HIV negative since becoming Laney’s partner in 2005.

HERMIONE EYRE

Hermione Eyre is a journalist. She went to Rugby School but left neither muscular nor Christian. At Oxford, she interviewed Seamus Heaney for a student paper by fax machine. She was staff writer and TV critic on the
Independent on Sunday
for six years, where her most exciting interviewees were Gilbert and George, Slavoj Zizek, Jarvis Cocker, and Joanna Lumley, whom she saved from a gunman. She wrote, with William Donaldson,
The Dictionary of National Celebrity
(2005, Weidenfeld and Nicholson) and contributes to media including
New Statesman
, the
Observer
, and Radio 3’s
Night Waves
.

ROBBIE FULKS

Robbie Fulks (www.robbiefulks.com) is a country songwriter, guitar picker, and recording artist. He has released nine solo albums, of which the most recent,
50-vc. Doberman
, a digital fifty-song multi-genre experiment, is available at his website. Among his proudest accomplishments are appearing at the Grand Ole Opry, producing George Jones, singing with Mavis Staples, and recording with Lucinda Williams, Sam Bush, Jenny Scheinman, Lloyd Green, and Al Anderson (though narrowing it down is hard). Robbie has lived for twenty-five years in and around Chicago.

A. C. GRAYLING

Anthony Grayling (www.acgrayling.com) is professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford. For several years he wrote the “Last Word” column for the
Guardian
, and he is a regular reviewer for the
Literary Review
and the
Financial Times
. He also often writes for the
Observer
,
Economist
,
Times Literary Supplement
,
Independent on Sunday
, and
New Statesman
, and is a frequent broadcaster on B
BC
Radio 4, Radio 3, and the World Service. His latest books are
Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Society and En
lightenment Values
and
Ideas that Matter
.

NATALIE HAYNES

Natalie Haynes (www.nataliehaynes.com) is an award-winning comedian, writer, and broadcaster. She has written and performed five stand-up shows that have toured internationally, from Berlin
to Manhattan, via the Edinburgh Fringe. She is also a classicist and the author of a forthcoming book on how the ancients shape our lives even now,
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life
, to be published by Profile Books in 2010. She is a regular contributor to the
Times
, the
Sunday Times
, and
New Humanist
, and a reviewer for
Newsnight Review
(B
BC
2),
Saturday Review
(Radio 4), and
Front Row
(Radio 4).

JON HOLMES

Jon Holmes (www.jonholmes.net) is a seven-time Sony Radio and British Comedy Award–winning writer, comedian, and polymorphic media alloy. He is on Radio 4 more often than the weather, co-creating
Dead Ringers
and starring in
The Now Show
as well in his own series
Listen Against
. He presents his own show on B
BC
6 Music and turned his first book,
Rock Star Babylon
, into a stand-up show for the 2009 Edinburgh Festival. His TV credits includes
Mock the Week
and
Have I Got News for You
, and he was once asked to go into the jungle on
I’m a Celebrity . . .
but told them to sod off.

ROBIN INCE

Robin Ince (www.robinince.com) is an award-winning comedian and writer and the creator of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People. He performs stand-up shows about African orchid beetles, finches’ beaks, and Tycho Brahe, but is not very good at making jokes about wave particle duality. He regularly appears on Radio 4 on the likes of
The News Quiz
and
Just a Minute
and all those TV shows you would expect comedians to turn up on. He can also frequently be seen at book festivals facetiously reading from books by charlatans and bamboozlers in Robin Ince’s Book Club, with a little Mills an
d Boon for light relief. He is currently working on impersonations of Richard Feynman.

ALLISON KILKENNY

Allison Kilkenny (www.wearecitizenradio.co
m and www.allisonkilkenny.com) is a journalist and radio host living in NYC. G. Gordon Liddy once said her writing makes him want to vomit, which is the greatest compliment she’s ever received, ever.

JAMIE KILSTEIN

Jamie Kilstein (www.wearecitizenradio.com) is a political comedian and radio host living in Brooklyn. He is in love with one of the other contributors in this book.

MATT KIRSHEN

In 1987 Matt Kirshen (www.mattkirshen.com) first took to the stage, as King 2 in a production of the Nativity play. His performance was so immensely powerful that he could not bring himself to perform publicly for another six years, graciously giving other actors a chance. In 1993 the lure of Shakespeare was too great, and on finding out that a staging of
Macbeth
lacked a Second Servant, he boldly stepped into the breach, shamelessly stealing both scenes, before gliding back into semi-retirement. In 2001 he finally realized that the only way to stem the jealous tide of fellow performers would be to only work alone, and he embarked on a career in stand-up that continues to this day.

PAUL KRASSNER

Paul Krassner (www.paulkrassner.com) is the author of
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture
, and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster. He is the only person in the world ever to receive awards from both
Playboy
(for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workshop (for journalism). His reviews have been highly complimentary. The
New York Times
: “He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.” The
Los Angeles Times
: “He has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently.” The
San Francisco Chronicle
: “Krassner is absolutely compelling. He has lived on the edge so long he gets his mail delivered there.”