'Return author data as a dictionary with keys: name, sort, link
If no authors with the specified ids are found an empty dictionary is
returned. If author_ids is None, data for all authors is returned.'

@read_api
def author_data(self, author_ids=None):

    af = self.fields[u'authors']
    if (author_ids is None):
        author_ids = tuple(af.table.id_map)
    return {aid: af.author_data(aid) for aid in author_ids if (aid in af.table.id_map)}
