The Writers’ Toolkit 2010 – Speaker Details
The Writers’ Toolkit 2010 – Speakers Biographical Details
Details are subject to change; please check www.writingwestmidlands.org for details
Naylah Ahmed has been writing since the late 90s, beginning with poetry and prose including two short stories published by Tindal Street Press. She has had several plays aired on BBC Radio 4, and in 2008 her stage play Butcher Boys won The Bruntwood Playwriting Competition . She was one of six writers of These Four Streets, a play staged in The Door (Birmingham Repertory Theatre) in 2009. Naylah has also written for television including 6 episodes of BBC Scotland’s prime time soap River City. She is currently working on two stage plays, one of which has been accepted for production by Birmingham Rep. Naylah has also worked for BBC Radio Drama as development producer, producing radio plays by new writers for BBC Radio 4, and was founding script editor of Silver Street, a BBC radio soap from 2004-2010.
Naomi Alsop lives and writes in the gap between Coventry and Birmingham. She runs and co-ordinates writing workshops for children and adults, organises training for writers in schools, programmes literary events and is in the final year of the MA in Writing at the University of Warwick. www.naomialsop.com
Sue Beardsmore worked for the BBC for over 20 years as a broadcast journalist for ‘Midlands Today’ – reporting, presenting, writing scripts and making films. She now works on projects in the UK and abroad sharing those skills and her experience with individuals and groups from Chief Executives to schoolchildren. She is a facilitator and regularly chairs events and debates from the deadly serious to the frankly trivial. She enjoys public speaking. She is a non-executive Director of Tindal Street Press. http://www.suebeardsmore.co.uk
Jo Bell is a writer and performer, facilitator, workshop leader, editor, live literature promoter and manager of creative projects across the UK. Her main job is to co-ordinate National Poetry Day, for which she is the Director. She is also a director of Living Derby and a trustee of the Ledbury Poetry Festival. Jo devised the online/hard copy writing project Bugged, with writer David Calcutt, and has had her first play for young people performed by Action Transport Theatre. She was one of the artists included in the Companion Stones project, to put new poetry stones in the moors of her native Peak District. Formerly a professional archaeologist, Jo retains a strong interest in historic landscapes. She is based on 67′ narrowboat Tinker which is often moored in Cheshire. www.bell-jar.co.uk http://www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk/
Julia Bird is the Programme & Marketing Officer for the Poetry School, and also manages and produces live literature touring shows through her own freelance identity, Jaybird. Her last tour ‘You Are Here’ featured the work of poets Colette Bryce, Daljit Nagra and Jo Shapcott; and a new tour is planned for Autumn 2011. Her poetry collection ‘Hannah and the Monk’ was published by Salt in 2008. www.jaybird.org.uk www.poetryschool.com
Luke Brown is Senior Editor at Tindal Street Press, where he worked in a small team since 2002, publishing writers including Catherine O’Flynn, Anthony Cartwright, Raphael Selbourne and Gaynor Arnold. www.tindalstreet.co.uk
For the last five years, Christine Bridgwood has been director of Creative Partnerships Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire (now Partners in Creative Learning), delivering the national flagship programme for creativity in schools. She was an editor in Berlin, a literature programmer in London, and Literature Officer at Arts Council North West for seven years. She developed several innovative literature projects for Arts Council West Midlands, including Poetry On Loan. She was responsible for creative industries development at Stafford Borough Council, and was a research associate in cultural development at Staffordshire University. In her spare time she is an avid reader and occasional writer. www.picl.uk.com
Antonia Byatt is Director, Literature at Arts Council England. She has the overview of Arts Council funding (about £11m per year) across England and works to build partnerships with broadcasters, publishers, libraries and the education sector to provide more opportunities for people to produce and consume creative writing. Before joining Arts Council England, Antonia was Director of the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University (2000 – 2007), an academic research library and cultural centre containing the largest collection of women’s history in the UK. Prior to joining the library, Antonia was Head of Literature and Talks at the South Bank Centre (1993-2000), which involved overseeing the literature programme of around 130 events a year and overall management of the poetry library. She is a governor of the Bishopsgate Institute and since 2008 has been a governor of New Buckinghamshire University. www.artscouncil.org.uk/artforms/literature/
Kate Chapman came to Birmingham in 1998 having spent three years as artistic director of Theatre in the Mill in Bradford. After completing the MA in play writing at Birmingham University, Kate worked as a writer in TV and theatre before becoming Programme Director at Script, the regional theatre writing agency in the West Midlands. She worked for four years as a Producer for BBC Radio Drama, producing plays for Radio 4 by writers including Nick Walker, Naylah Ahmed, Amanda Whittington, Kaite O’Reilly and David Calcutt. Kate has also worked as an independent writer, producer and director making a series of audio walks with writer Charlotte Goodwin, most recently Amplifying the Map for the reopening of Midlands Arts Centre, and as an artist in education and health settings doing everything from lantern making in schools to devising radio plays with youth theatres. Kate is currently Artistic Director of Theatre Writing Partnership developing theatre writing with theatres in the East Midlands and producing the Momentum Festival which took place at Curve Theatre, Leicester in October. http://twp2009.wordpress.com/
Catherine Clarke was Publishing Director of the Trade Books Department at OUP for several years before she joined Felicity Bryan as an agent in 2001. She represents a broad range of writers of serious non-fiction, including biography, philosophy and history. She also represents a number of bestselling and prizewinning writers for children and young adults. She became Managing Director of Felicity Bryan Associates in 2010. www.felicitybryan.com
Bernie Corbett is a British trade unionist and former journalist. He has been General Secretary of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain since 2000. Bernie has been chief sub-editor of The Guardian (London) and chief features sub-editor of The Independent (London). Throughout his journalistic career Bernie was an activist in the National Union of Journalists and remains an expert on the UK media and an experienced negotiator with all the main newspaper and broadcasting organisations. In his role as General Secretary of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain he conducts extensive negotiations with the BBC, ITV, independent producers, theatre managers and others. He covers TV, film, radio, new media and print publishing. Bernie is a skeptical humanist and lives in unfashionable South-East London. www.writersguild.org.uk
Jim Crace grew up in North London and has lived for many years in Birmingham. Before becoming a full-time writer he worked in the Sudan and as a journalist. In 1986 he published Continent which won the Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award, the David Higham Prize for Fiction, and the Guardian Fiction prize. This was followed by other novels, including The Gift of Stones, Arcadia, Signals of Distress and most recently All That Follows. He was awarded a National Book Critics Circle Award (USA) in 1999. www.jim-crace.com
Helen Cross writes novels, stories, plays and scripts. She is the author of three novels, including the award-winning ‘My Summer of Love’, and most recently ‘Black Coffee Spilt Milk’ (Bloomsbury 2010), which she is currently adapting for the screen. Her latest play for radio is a drama-documentary, ‘Blue-Eyed Boy’, which will be broadcast on 29 November at 2.15 on Radio 4. Her original screenplay, ‘Stratford Road’, is scheduled to begin filming in Birmingham shortly, directed by Emily Young. http://www.bloomsbury.com/authors/details.aspx?tpid=522
Jonathan Davidson is Chief Executive of Writing West Midlands, Associate Director of the Birmingham Book Festival and Director of Midland Creative Projects Limited. He serves on the Arts Policy Committee of the Belgrade Theatre and the Board of Management of Artspace (both in Coventry) and on the Management Committee of the National Association of Writers in Education. He is a Fellow of the RSA. www.writingwestmidlands.org www.midlandcreative.co.uk.
Steve Dearden is the Director of NALD, the National Association for Literature Development, and the Writing Squad a two year programme for writers aged 16-20.Steve is Associate Producer for imove, Yorkshire’s Cultural Olympiad, and Associate Producer of Leeds Canvas, an Artists Take the Lead collaboration between Leeds and the Brothers Quay. He has produced his own found literature, international exchange and online projects and writes short stories. As a consultant he has worked with a wide range of literature and cultural organisations on their organisational and strategic development. Before this he was Literature Officer for Yorkshire Arts and Director of the Ilkley Literature Festival. www.stevedearden.com www.nald.org
Malcolm Dewhirst is a poet, writer and film maker. He has written poetry, community plays and film scripts for projects that provide an interpretation of place, through exploring landscapes, history and people. He is the project director of the Polesworth Poets Trail, which saw the installation of ten contemporary poems displayed on sculptures throughout the North Warwickshire town of Polesworth, where he runs a bi-monthly spoken word event, The Fizz. Malcolm has had poetry published in magazines and anthologies and is working on his first full collection. His work has appeared on BBC Radio and Violet Microwave productions. His film credits include Pollysworda, a documentary on the development of the Polesworth Poets Trail and a film poem Yell!. He lives in Tamworth, Staffordshire. http://www.polesworthparish.co.uk/poetstrail/index.html http://www.maldewhirst.com
David Edgar is a playwright and President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. His plays include ‘The National Interest’, ‘Excuses Excuses’, ‘Dick Deterred’, ‘Saigon Rose’, ‘Wreckers’, ‘Mary Barnes’, ‘Entertaining Strangers’, ‘Destiny’, ‘The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs’, ‘The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby’, ‘Maydays’, ‘The Shape of the Table’, ‘Pentecost’ and ‘Albert Speer’. He is the founder of the University of Birmingham’s MPhil Playwriting course. He was born – and still lives – in Birmingham.
Eugene Egan was born in Birmingham and has a degree in journalism from Solent University. He has written on politics and current affairs for magazines in the UK and Ireland. Eugene has been a regular participant in Reading for Well-Being groups, which he says has been an essential part of his recovery and has rekindled his interest in writing and journalism.
Formerly a teen magazine agony uncle, Mike Gayle is the author of seven bestselling novels including ‘My Legendary Girlfriend’, ‘Brand New Friend’, ‘Wish You Were Here’ and most recently ‘The Importance of Being a Batchelor’. His non-fiction book entitled ‘The To Do List’ has struck a chord with many. He has contributed to a number of publications including: The Guardian, The Times, FHM, Cosmopolitan and Top of The Pops magazine. http://www.mikegayle.co.uk/
Shreela Ghosh is Director of the Free Word Centre. She began her working life as a performer; later re-training as a reporter with BBC TV News, Shreela went on to make documentaries. She then became the Director of a national dance agency before joining the Arts Council of England in 1994. Five years on Shreela was appointed Head of Arts at London Borough of Tower Hamlets and she then moved to the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (one of the largest grant-makers in the UK) to become its first Programme Director for Arts & Heritage. Shreela has an MA in European Cultural Policy from the University of Warwick and a Diploma in History of Art from the University of London. She has served on a committee at NESTA – National Endowment of Science Technology & Arts – and was a member of the Greater London Authority’s Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage. She is currently a member of the Heritage Lottery Fund (London Committee); on the Board of the European Cultural Foundation which works across the EU and in the neighbouring states, and DV8 – founded by the choreographer Lloyd Newson. www.freewordonline.com
Roz Goddard is a poet. ‘The Sopranos Sonnets and Other Poems’ is Roz Goddard’s fourth poetry collection and was launched at The Ledbury Poetry Festival 2010 and is published by Nine Arches Press. She is a former poet laureate for Birmingham, her work is permanently displayed in BMAG’s newest gallery. Her poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She runs writing workshops and courses, including for the Arvon Foundation and mentors individual writers. She is currently studying for an MPhil in writing at Glamorgan University. More details of her work can be found at www.rozgoddard.com.
Ceri Gorton is a Relationship Manager for Literature at Arts Council England (based in the West Midlands) and holds a PhD in contemporary literature from the University of Nottingham. www.artscouncil.org.uk
James Grieve is co-Artistic Director of Paines Plough. He was formerly Artistic Director of nabokov for 10 years and Associate Director of the Bush Theatre. His directing credits for Paines Plough include ‘Love, Love, Love’ by Mike Bartlett, ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ by Marie Jones and ‘Tiny Volcanoes’ by Laurence Wilson. Further directing credits include ‘The Whisky Taster’ by James Graham, ‘St Petersburg’ by Declan Feenan and ‘Psychogeography’ by Lucy Kirkwood (The Bush); ‘Old Street’ by Patrick Marber (The nabokov Arts Club); ‘The List’ by David Eldridge (Arcola); ‘Country Music and Pornography’ by Simon Stephens (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama). James has also directed comedians and poets including Isy Suttie, Simon Brodkin, Luke Wright and Aisle16. http://www.painesplough.com/
Carol Harding is Producer and Co-Director, Vicarious Dream Films. She has worked across television and film for twenty years. She has been producing for twelve years. She set-up Vicarious Production in 1997 to produce television drama and feature films, after eleven years at the BBC. Prior to leaving the BBC she held the position of Development Executive, Drama Series. Carol’s producer credits include the flagship dramas, ‘Holby City’ (BBC1), ‘Afternoon Play’ (BBC1), ‘Doctors’ (BBC1), ‘Feeder’ (Film London), ‘People’s Century’ (BBC1), ‘Metrosexuality’ (C4), ‘Fugee Girl’ (C4) ‘Heterosexuality’ (C4). Carol’s credits comprise drama, film, entertainment and factual programming. Along side her production work she has sat on various industry committees. At the BBC she has been involved with the Disability, Safety and Portrayal Committees; Training Schemes for Programme Trainees, New Directors and Writers initiatives. Carol has also sat on the Board of Pact Independent Production Training Fund, Training Committee, Film Committee, Women in Film & TV Board and worked with and on behalf of Skillset and UK Film Council. Carol has a BA Honours (History) and is studying for a diploma in wine. Carol is also a life member BAFTA, BAFTA/Media Trust Mentor, Fellow RSA, and also a member of Chelsea FC.
David Hunter is an Executive Producer for BBC Radio Drama in London a particular focus on New Writing. Recent productions have included ‘Slaughterhouse 5’, ‘A Bridge to the Stars’, ‘Hysteria’ and ‘A Month in the Country’. Previous workplaces include The Bush Theatre, Paines Plough, The Arvon Foundation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
Okojie Irenosen is the National Development Coordinator at Apples & Snakes. She is responsible for sign posting artists to the company. Her role involves supporting the regional coordinators to build the presence of Apples & Snakes, programming events and establishing artistic development opportunities. In 2009 she was the Publicity Officer for The Caine Prize tour and has programmed for organisations such as Duckie. She joined Apples & Snakes as Press & Marketing Officer in December 2008. www.applesandsnakes.org
Philip Gwyn Jones was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1966. After an accelerated publication education at a tiny children’s publisher, he joined Collins (which later became HarperCollins) in 1989 as an Editor, spending 15 years there, the last 8 of them as Publisher of Flamingo, its literary list. Among the authors he published there were Isabel Allende, JG Ballard, Douglas Coupland, Jhumpa Lahiri, Doris Lessing, George Monbiot and Arundhati Roy. When the Flamingo list was put to sleep in 2004, Jones was freed to set up a new independent house. With philanthropist-campaigning backers Sigrid Rausing and Eric Abraham, Portobello Books Ltd was founded in spring 2005. Its emphases have always been activist non-fiction and internationalist fiction. In 2008, as Portobello Books came together with its new (but older) sibling Granta Books, Jones became Publisher supervising the two imprints. www.grantabooks.com www.portobellobooks.com
Caroline Jester is Dramaturg at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, where new writing includes work for early years, adaptations, site specific theatre, collaborative playwriting, writing for larger stages and writer/performers. Caroline is the co-author of ‘Playwriting Across the Curriculum’ to be published by Routledge in June 2011 exploring the teaching of playwriting in the National Curriculum and also works as a freelance Dramaturg and Director. She has taught on numerous undergraduate courses, the Mphil in Playwriting at Birmingham and at the Arvon Foundation. www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
In 1988 Graham Joyce quit an executive job and decamped to the Greek island of Lesbos, there to live in a beach shack to concentrate on writing. He sold his first novel while still in Greece and since then has published 15 novels and numerous short stories. He is a winner of last year’s O Henry Award; The World Fantasy Award; and is five-times winner of the British Fantasy Award. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. He has worked as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and recently for the game franchise Doom. His new novel is The Silent Land and his website is: www.grahamjoyce.net
Ian R MacLeod has been writing professionally for near-on twenty years and has published five novels and four short-story collections. He numbers the World Fantasy Award and the Arthur C Clark Award amongst his many commendations. His work has been widely anthologised and translated into many languages. Ian lives with his wife in Bewdley, Worcestershire. He has also been involved in many varieties of teaching, from evening classes to residential workshops, and schools to universities. www.ianrmacleod.com
Chris McCabe is Professor of Molecular Endocrinology at the University of Birmingham. His research interests concern the roles of several oncogenes in thyroid, breast and colon cancer. Writing as John McCabe, he was responsible for the novels ‘Stickleback’, ‘Paper’, ‘Snakeskin’, ‘Big Spender’ and ‘Herding Cats’. Subsequently, as John Macken, he gave rise to the forensic thrillers ‘Dirty Little Lies’, ‘Trail by Blood’, ‘Breaking Point’, and ‘Control’. www.johnmacken.co.uk
Dr Paul McDonald is Course Leader for Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton. He is the author of several academic books, several collections of poetry, and several novels, the most recent being ‘Do I Love You?’ (Tindal Street Press, 2008). His primary research interest is humour, and he takes a perverse pleasure in the fact that Googling the words, ‘the oldest joke in the world’ throws up several hundred pages with his name on. http://www.tindalstreet.co.uk/authors/paul-mcdonald
Birmingham Poet Laureate Roy McFarlane was born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage and spent most of his former years living in Wolverhampton. As Resident Poet at Starbucks, a solo performer and a member of the ‘New October Poets’ he’s performed in numerous venues, sharing the stage with poets such as Roi Kwabena, Fred D’Aguiar and Talking Brothers. A regular with City Voices and Writers without Borders. His play ‘For the Love of Auset’ premiered at The Drum, Aston, in June 2007. His short story ‘Conversation with an Ant’ has also been published in ‘Original Skin’ and he’s presently studying MA in Writing at the National Academy of Writing, Birmingham City University. http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/roymcfarlane
Philip Monks is a poet and playwright based in Birmingham. He works extensively in primary and secondary schools, with adult groups and undergraduates, including Teacher As Writer sessions at Birmingham City University and recently helped OCR develop resources for their GCSE poetry anthology. He has produced two poetry pamphlets, won the Poetry Places prize, and performs his poetry regularly in schools and at festivals. He has edited several anthologies of new student writing for the Oaks Collegiate and other bodies. He was poet in residence at New Art Gallery Walsall in 2009. He has written many plays for young people, and was previously playwright in residence at the Midlands Arts Centre. In 2009 he scripted a DVD for Birmingham City Council’s ‘Brighter Future’ strategy. He is a partner in ‘Hoopla Productions’ and his play for young people, ‘The Night Queen’, opens at The Belgrade, Coventry in June 2011. www.thenightqueen.net
An ecologist and naturalist by background, David Morley’s poetry has won fourteen writing awards and prizes including the Templar Poetry Prize, the Poetry Business Competition, an Arts Council of England Writer’s Award, an Eric Gregory Award, the Raymond Williams Prize and a Hawthornden Fellowship. His previous collection The Invisible Kings was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. David is also known for his pioneering ecological poetry installations within natural landscapes and the creation of ‘slow poetry’ sculptures and I-Cast poetry films. His ‘writing challenges’ podcasts are among the most popular literature downloads on iTunes worldwide. He writes essays, criticism and reviews for The Guardian and Poetry Review. A leading international advocate of creative writing both inside and outside of the academy, David wrote ‘The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing’ which has been translated into many languages. He currently teaches at the University of Warwick. http://www.davidmorley.org.uk/
Paul Munden is Director of the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), a membership organization supporting writers and writing of all genres in all educational settings throughout the UK. He has worked as a creative writing tutor in schools and universities. His poetry has received an Eric Gregory Award and has appeared in many anthologies, including the ‘Faber Book of Movie Verse’ and Faber’s ‘Poetry Introduction 7’. A collection, ‘Asterisk’, will be published in 2011. For the British Council, he has been the Writer-in-Residence at several Anglo-Swiss conferences, most recently on the Role of Cultural Relations in Addressing Conflict (Geneva, 2010). He is the editor of ‘Feeling the Pressure: Poetry and Science of Climate Change’ (British Council 2008). www.nawe.co.uk.
Femi Oyebode is Professor of Psychiatry at University of Birmingham. His interests include the use of literature in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. He edited ‘Mindreadings: literature and psychiatry’ and is currently working on ‘Madness at the theatre’. He is a poet.
Lara Ratnaraja is Sector Development Director, Creative Cultural and Digital sector Business Link West Midlands. Her role is to engage with the region’s creative industries sector, delivering business support, programmes and initiatives across the creative industries spectrum and ensuring business support provision continues to help catalyse the growth of the sector. She works with key partners Screen West Midlands, Arts Council England WM, AWM Digital Media Cluster, Renaissance WM, 4IP and the region’s HEIs, to ensure a joined up approach across industry, skills and business support for the sector. Having represented Business Link WM in the development of its sector provision for the last seven years, she has been able to work on the development of an industry in the region. The international reputation of the West Midlands as a hotbed for creative industries is evidence of this collaborative work with the industry and business support services. www.businesslinkwm.co.uk
Brenda Read-Brown worked for many years as an IT project manager. She gave this up in 2001 to work as a full-time freelance writer. Although Brenda won a number of poetry slams, she found that she could not make a living from performance poetry alone, and started working in schools, and with older people; with libraries and in hospitals; with adult literacy students and festivals and in prisons. She has worked, literally, with people aged from 1 to 101. Recently, she has won awards for several plays and two have been published, but helping other people find their words is what makes her writing life a continuing joy. www.brendaread-brown.co.uk
Peggy Riley is a writer, playwright and workshop leader living in Kent. Her short fiction has been published in the recent ‘New Short Stories 4’ for the Willesden Herald 2010 Short Story Contest and broadcast on BBC Radio Kent. She was on the shortlist for the 2009 Asham Award. As a playwright she was on-attachment at Soho Theatre and has had work commissioned and produced at a number of off-West End and regional theatres, as well as tours and residencies in site-specific spaces including historic churches, houses, and a former women’s internment camp. She regularly runs workshops on creative writing, digital literature, and filmmaking in schools, arts centres and prisons, and blogs at www.ukpr.wordpress.com. She runs East Kent Live Lit, a live literature network: www.livelit.co.uk. She is also frequently found on Twitter @ukpr. For more info, visit www.peggyriley.co.uk.
Ros Robins is the Regional Director of Arts Council England. She started her career as a performer before running a Community Arts Centre in Bristol. She then worked as a Theatre Administrator for a number of years, firstly at the Liverpool Everyman and more recently at the Birmingham Rep where she also managed a major refurbishment of the Theatre. Ros joined the Arts Council in 2001 initially as Director of Management Services and more recently as Director of Arts, responsible for supporting arts development in the region. Ros has recently been appointed as the new Regional Director as part of the latest re-structure of the Arts Council, taking up this position in April 2010. www.artscouncil.org.uk
Before joining Writing East Midlands Catherine Rogers was the Literature Development Officer for Derby where she co-ordinated and programmed many literature events and projects. She has worked in different community arts settings both as an artist and arts worker including, co-ordinating a reminiscence project for Charnwood Arts and as Youth Arts Officer for Amber Valley Borough Council. Catherine moved to Derbyshire in 2002 from London where she worked both in bookselling and publishing. www.writingeastmidlands.co.uk.
Mandy Ross has written over 60 children’s books, as well as poetry and a play to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS. She has done lots of arts and health work and is now working with Polly Wright of The Hearth Centre to establish Reading for Well-Being within Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust and further afield. www.thehearthcentre.org.uk www.secretcityarts.com
Pat Stafford spent many years as a primary school teacher, working with the whole primary age range. Her passion for English teaching was first ignited by a concern for children who so often seemed to be frog-marched through a relentless and dreary reading scheme and required to write for everyone else’s purposes, but rarely for their own. As for the spoken word – well, that seemed to be entirely the business of the teacher. Her career, therefore, has been characterised by the pursuit of something better for our children. She has been an English Co-ordinator in two schools and later worked in an advisory capacity for Coventry LEA before moving into Teacher Education at Newman University College Birmingham, which gives her the opportunity (and huge responsibility!) of working with the next generation of Primary English teachers. Along the way, she has managed to acquire a Masters degree in English in Education and a PhD.
Barry Taylor is Senior Lecturer and Award Leader in English at Staffordshire University, where he also contributes as a poet to the Undergraduate Creative Writing programme.
Tony Taylor has worked as a Chartered Accountant over the last three decades – and for the last 27 years he’s been helping businesses and individuals through the good and bad times of business and the economy. In the last decade, he’s been Angel invested in a high speed recorder business; The Beermat Entrepreneur, with Mike Southon; cartoons Henry Egg and Prosthetic Pirates with Lee (Number 9 the Gallery) Benson; a search and employment agency and Public Sector Providers. He is (unpaid) chairman of Birmingham Business Breakfast Club, which last week had Digby Jones talking to 120 business people. He’s an approachable chap, always willing to give advice and guidance!
Chris Unitt runs Meshed Media, a creative agency that helps artists and organisations to develop digital projects to express their creativity and increase their reach, specialising in the use of social media. Clients include Apples & Snakes, International Dance Festival Birmingham, sampad, Birmingham Hippodrome and Rhubarb Rhubarb. http://meshedmedia.com
Nick Walker is a Perrier nominated writer and director who has worked across a range of writing forms since 94. He is co-founder of, and staff writer with, Talking Birds, and his work has been presented extensively in the UK as well as Europe, and the USA. He has worked with some of the country’s leading new work theatre companies including Stan’s Cafe, Insomniac, and Debbie Isitt’s Snarling Beasties. His afternoon plays and short stories are often featured on BBC Radio 4, including 3 series of ‘The First King of Mars’ (starring Peter Capaldi), and 3 series of the late-night show ‘The Bigger Issues’. He is director of independent radio company, Top Dog, and has directed two of their drama series for Radio 4. He is the author of two critically acclaimed novels ‘Blackbox’ and ‘Helloland’, published in the UK and worldwide and is featured in Tindal Street’s short story anthology ‘Roads Ahead’. He is currently working on a single drama commission for BBC Scotland, a new drama series for Shed, and on a screenplay with Black Camel pictures. http://www.topdogproductions.tv/
Damien G Walters is a writer of weird and speculative fiction. His stories have been published in genre and literary publications including Electric Velocipede, Murky Depths, Serendipity, The Drabblecast, Pulp.net and Transmission and also broadcast on BBC Radio. In 2005 he was shortlisted for the Douglas Coupland short fiction contest, and more recently won a grant from Arts Council England to work on his first novel. He writes and reviews for The Guardian and is a regular guest on The Guardian books podcast. He attended the 2008 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy workshop at UC San Diego. http://literaturenetwork.org/