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Room 204

2013-14 Cohort

Yasmin Ali has been writing non-fiction for publication for many years, turning more recently to her first love, fiction. She has written for magazines and newspapers including The New Statesman and The Western Mail, book chapters on social and public policy, as well as editing a consumer website.

Yasmin has had short stories published in anthologies: Written In Blood edited by Lindsay Ashford and Caroline Oakley, Honno 2009; and Cut on The Bias, edited by Stephanie Tillotson, Honno 2010. A short stage play received a reading by a professional cast at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2011, and was turned into a radio play for BBC Wales in 2013.

Yasmin is currently completing a novel. She is a member of the Tindal Street Fiction Group.

Yasmin’s website
Twitter: @YasminAli

Lindsy Anderson grew up in Herefordshire and has recently returned. 

She has had numerous short stories and articles published in magazines and a short story published in the Australian anthology Damnation and Dames. She organised and lead a Creative Writing Group for Carers in conjunction with the charity Herefordshire Carers Support, working with a small group of carers to help improve their creative writing, both poetry and short stories as a respite from their caring activities.

Lindsy writes short stories across a variety of genres in her spare time, and has started work on her first novel. 

Lindsy’s website
Twitter: @Lindsy_26and1

Jean Atkin works as a poet, writer and educator, and lives in Shropshire.

Her first collection Not Lost Since Last Time was published by Oversteps Books in spring 2013. Previous pamphlets include The Treeless Region (Ravenglass Poetry Press 2010), Lost at Sea (Roncadora Press 2011) and The Dark Farms (Roncadora Press 2012).  

Jean has experience of working as a poet with a wide range of school and community projects, including Poet in Residence for Dumfries & Galloway Science Festival.  

She was the Ledbury Poetry Festival Troubadour of the Hills.

Jean’s website
Twitter: @wordsparks

Liam Brown is from Birmingham. Liam’s writing has been described as ‘dark, dirty and desperate’, with short stories appearing in various places online and in print, including Straight from the Fridge, Beat the Dust and BRAND magazine while his plays have been performed at the Greenwich Playhouse and the Woolwich Drama Festival.

His first two novels Real Monsters (2015) and Wild Life (2016) were each nominated for the Guardian‘s Not the Booker Prize, while his third, Broadcast (2017), has been published internationally and optioned by a major Hollywood studio. His fourth novel, Skin, was published in 2019.

Liam’s Agent
Twitter:
@LiamBrownWriter

Jane Campion Hoye has worked as an actor, business journalist and copywriter.  Since returning to creative writing, she has specialised in scriptwriting and storytelling. 

Jane is also an experienced workshop leader and performer.

Jane’s website
Twitter: @janecampionhoye

Elisabeth Charis is a thinker, writer, teacher and permaculturalist currently living in England on her boat. She has travelled extensively and lived in China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and, most recently, Syria until political unrest forced her to return to the UK.

Elisabeth currently teaches English in a Birmingham grammar school and runs Creative Writing workshops. She enjoys the challenge of all kinds of writing though has two longer term projects in process at present – a novel and a collection of poetry.

Elisabeth’s website

Naomi de la Tour teaches writing at the University of Warwick, in school and community settings and supports writers in developing their own creative teaching practice.

Her writing explores the ways perceptions, stories and ideas can change the way we experience the world around us and ourselves and she enjoys finding new ways of connecting with readers and audiences.

She lives and writes in the gap between Birmingham and Coventry.

William Gallagher is a scriptwriter, performer and author of the British Film Institute book BFI TV Classics: The Beiderbecke Affair. He’s a performer on the spoken-word cabaret circuit in Birmingham and writes Doctor Who audio dramas for BBC/Big Finish.

His work has appeared extensively in Radio Times and BBC News Online plus The Independentthe Los Angeles Times and on BBC local and national radio.

He’s developing TV series with Red Planet, has won awards for his stage drama and his photography has been published in international jewellery books. He is currently writing a series of books on British TV drama history and the definitive coffee-table reference guide to Blake’s 7. 

William’s website
Twitter: @WGallagher

Cindy George is originally from the North East, but has worked all over the country as a copywriter for radio stations and advertising agencies.  She was first published as a writer of short stories for Just Seventeen magazine in the late eighties, and as a music journalist for the NME and others in the fallow period between acid house and Britpop.  She has also worked as a press officer, a market researcher, and a farmhand on a banana plantation.  In 2011, after ten years at a London advertising agency, she sold her small flat in Hackney and moved to Coventry in order to study for an MA in Writing at Warwick University and buy an entire three-bedroomed house with a garden.

At Warwick, she began work on the novel which is her current project.  Alongside the novel, she is currently working on a collection of ghost stories as well as a novella for young adults and a series of poems about the many exasperations of being a Morrissey fan. 

Cindy’s website 
Twitter: @tartrazine

Justina Hart is a novelist, poet, short story writer, copywriter and former journalist. Her books include The Rhythm of Stones, a collection of her poems and photographs, and an art book, Angels: millennial messengers. A creative non-fiction essay about Will Self and the M40 made its way into Common Ground: around Britain in 30 writers and she contributed a chapter to The Rough Guide to First-Time Africa.

Justina has worked at the Guardian and the Daily Express, holding commissioning editor roles at both. She’s had poems on London buses, been on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service and taught inner city kids podcasting and poetry. 

Justina’s website

Sarah James is a widely-published and award-winning journalist, fiction writer and poet, whose first poetry collection, Into the Yell (Circaidy Gregory Press, 2010), won third prize in the International Rubery Book Awards 2011. Her second, Be[yond], is published by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press (2013). 

Sarah was twice shortlisted for Worcestershire Poet Laureate, has been a guest poet at numerous festival and spoken word events, including reading alongside Bernard O’Donoghue at Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2013 and performing at Ledbury Poetry Festival 2013. 

Currently based in Worcestershire, she runs the Poetry Society’s Worcestershire Stanza and is secretary of Droitwich Arts Network. 

Sarah’s website

Nadia Kingsley is a poet, artist and publisher. She is interested in closely observing nature, and in both science and art.

Her poems have been published in Orbis, Brand, Wenlock Poetry Festival Anthology 2011 & 2012, Poetry Cornwall, We’re all in this together environment anthology. Her short stories have won prizes. Her brick sculpture, and photography have been exhibited.

She set up Fair Acre Press in 2011.

Nadia’s website

Jeff Phelps’s poems and short stories have been widely published and anthologised. His two novels, Painter Man and Box of Tricks were published by Tindal Street Press.

He was first prize winner of the Mail on Sunday novel award in 1991. Sea View, the play he wrote with Nick Daws was staged in Stellenbosch, SA. His poetry for the artists’ collective, Rednile, was a response to building development in Burton-on-Trent.

River Passage, the poem which won second prize in the Stand Open Poetry competition in 2000 was produced as a CD by Offa’s Press, with original piano music by his son Dan.

He lives in Bridgnorth, Shropshire and attends the writers’ group he founded there in 1992.

Jeff’s website
Twitter: @jeff_phelps

Nik Sakaria is Midlands born and raised.

She has previously had short stories published in anthologies by Serpents Tail and Birkbeck. She writes short fiction immersed in modern society with a growing side-line in borderline sci-fi strange.

Alongside writing she has been working in outreach and participation projects for hard to reach audiences and marginalised groups as well as running workshops and mentoring vulnerable women in health-related projects. She is currently working on a novel populated by a mix of down but not out Midlanders.

Richard Stokes won first prize in the Birmingham Book Festival Short Fiction Competition 2012. He sings for indie-rock band Aquila, whose latest album is called Guilt Brings Out The Best In You. He is also an occasional actor, stand-up comedian and storyteller. 

He is currently finishing his first novel and a collection of short stories.

Rich’s website