Professor Donald Macleod is Principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh and one of Scotland's most challenging thinkers and writers, not only on theological matters, but also on a wide range of social and political issues. He is a native of Ness in Lewis.

Angus Peter Campbell was writer in residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Skye. A native of South Uist, he is a widely-published poet and author as well as an award-winning journalist. He writes a weekly Gaelic column for the Free Press.

Brian Wilson was founding editor of the West Highland Free Press and has maintained a close involvement in the paper and the issues it covers over the past 35 years. An award-winning journalist, he spent 18 years as a Labour MP at Westminster, eight of them as a Government Minister.

Roger Hutchinson was a prominent participant in the London-based alternative press of the 1960s who moved to Skye in the mid-1970s and has been writing for the Free Press ever since. He is also the author of more than a dozen books, the most recent of which, "Calum's Road", was short-listed for the 2007 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. He lives on Raasay.

Alex O'Henley, a native of South Uist, is the Free Press's weekly sports columnist, covering everything from local football and shinty to the big issues of world sport. He writes widely in both English and Gaelic. For his "day job", he is employed by UEFA as Scotland correspondent for the website uefa.com.

Chris Mitchell is a Zoology and Psychology graduate of the University of Hull. He lives in Waterstein in Skye and had led field-study groups on the island for over 26 years. He writes a fortnightly "Nature Notes" column for the Free Press.

Mary Beith has worked as a journalist in Scotland and England and is the author of "The Healing Thread", a study of the traditional medicines of the Highlands. She lives in Melness in Sutherland and writes a fortnightly Free Press column on the Gaelic medical tradition.

Raghnall MaciIleDhuibh (Ronnie Black) is retired from his position as Senior Lecturer in Celtic at Edinburgh University and is acknowledged as one of the greatest living Scottish Gaelic scholars. The author of "An Tuil: Anthology of 20th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse" and "The Gaelic Otherworld", he writes a fortnightly column for the Free Press.