All staff members and guests/performers will be chosen on the grounds that they are not only excellent writers, tutors, musicians or artists – but that they will contribute positively to a community atmosphere and are genuinely interested in helping facilitate a constructive and stimulating environment for participants.
We will draw from our team for future programmes as well as inviting different writers, musicians and artists but to give you an example of the calibre of tutors we will be working with see below. For spring facilitators see Spring Itinerary.
We can guarantee that we will be as choosy about the teams we take on our Literary Adventures as we are when it comes to picking readers (see our main website).
Author, award-winning journalist and tutor of creative writing
Rebecca Abrams is the author of both fiction and non-fiction and an award-winning journalist. Her fiction debut, Touching Distance, was published to critical acclaim in 2008. Well-known for her writing on various aspects of family life, she is also the author of several successful non-fiction titles, including Three Shoes, One Sock & No Hairbrush, a guide for second-time mothers, described as 'essential reading' by Parenting Magazine, and When Parents Die, first published in 1991, shortlisted for the MIND Award and now an established classic in its field. Rebecca is a tutor on the Creative Writing Diploma and Masters programmes at the University of Oxford and also teaches for the School of Life in London. A columnist on the Daily Telegraph for a number of years, she has worked for the BBC, the Daily Mail and Vogue as a writer and editor, was the recipient of an Amnesty International Press Award for her writing on children in war, and is a regular contributor to the Guardian and other publications. She has also worked as a school bereavement counsellor, a flute teacher, a campsite rep, an office gopher, a life story interviewer and a documentary researcher.
Author, critic and professor of creative writing
Russell Celyn Jones is a novelist and critic. His novels are: Ten Seconds From The Sun, Little, Brown (2006); Surface Tension, Little, Brown (2001); The Eros Hunter, Little, Brown (1998); An Interference of Light, Viking Penguin (1995); Small Times, Viking Penguin (1992); Soldiers and Innocents, Jonathan Cape (1990) and Little, Brown (1998). His short fiction has been anthologised in Journey to the Sea, Random House (2005), Summer Magic, Bloomsbury (2003) and Time Out Book of London Short Stories, Penguin (2000), The Ex-Files, Quartet (1998), Time Out Book of New York Stories, Penguin (1997). He has been awarded the Society of Author’s Award, Welsh Arts Council Fiction Prize and the David Higham Prize. In 2008 he judged the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatji Prize and the Man Booker Prize in 2002. He is a regular reviewer for The Times and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Coach, author and facilitator
Michael Eales is a psychologist, and has twenty-five years' experience as a group facilitator, coach and organizational consultant. He was a tutor at the Human Potential Research Project, University of Surrey where he worked closely with the pioneer of facilitation and coaching, John Heron, and co-authored the Personal Management Handbook and Implausible Professions. He taught Film and TV Drama and Documentary at King Alfred's College Winchester. For the last three years Michael was the General Manager of Skyros Holidays, where for many years he has also run creative workshops on a variety of themes. As a screenplay writer he was a script consultant for writer/director Peter Sykes, and currently co-writes with Anna Campion. Their film, Inertia, premiered at the London Raindance Film festival in 2003, and their last film, Bipolar, at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006. They are currently adapting a novel for film.
Author, critic, journalist, librettist, poet and teacher of creative writing
Born in Skipton, Yorkshire, Blake Morrison is the author of bestselling
memoirs, When Did You Last See Your Father? (winner of the J.R.Ackerley Prize
for Autobiography and the Esquire Award for Non-Fiction) and Things My Mother
Never Told Me ('the must read book of the year' – Tony Parsons), one novel
and a study of the Bulger case, As If. He is also a critic, journalist,
librettist and poet. He teaches Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College, and lives in South London with his family.
Author and tutor
Greg Mosse is teacher and author, and the founder of the successful and flourishing creative writing programme at West Dean College. He grew up in Sussex and read Drama & English at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has published science fiction, children's stories and literary translation. He and Kate are co-directors of the Chichester Writing Festival. Greg ran a series of creative writing workshops at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, as well as for a range of educational and corporate organisations, including West Sussex County Council and Orange. Greg has judged a range of literary awards including the NCR and the Harpers Bazaar/Orange Short Story Competition.
Author and Co-Founder of the Orange Broadband Prize
Kate Mosse is an author, broadcaster and Co-Founder and Honorary Director of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. She is a guest presenter for Saturday Review, Open Book and A Good Read for BBC Radio 4 and the author of six books, including the international bestsellers, Sepulchre and Labyrinth. Labyrinth, which has sold more than three million copies worldwide, won Richard & Judy's Best Book at the British Book Awards and was picked as one of Waterstone's Top 25 novels of the past twenty-five years. Kate is involved in several literacy and reading initiatives and has judged several literary prizes, including the Orange and the Penguin/Decibel Prize.
Classical violinist and performer
Nadia Myerscough studied at the Royal Academy of Music with her father Clarence Myerscough, and at Indiana University with Franco Gulli where she was awarded the Artist Diploma. During this time she won numerous prizes and awards. In 1997 she was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. Nadia has toured, both as a chamber music player and soloist, throughout Europe, the Seychelles, South America, Japan and the Far East, including a tour of Switzerland with the Festival Strings Lucerne. She has broadcast for BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, Radio MEC Brazil and Polish Radio and Television. Chamber Music performances include appearances at the Wigmore Hall, South Bank and City of London Festival. Nadia is regularly invited to Spain and Poland to give master classes. She has recorded for the Naxos and Meridian labels to great critical acclaim.
Author
Kamila Shamsie is the author of four novels, including Kartography and Broken Verses. Her fifth novel, Burnt Shadows, will be published in 2009, and has publishers in twelve countries. She writes for a number of publications including The Guardian and The Telegraph, is on the advisory board of the Index on Censorship, and three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters.
Author, script-editor and tutor of creative writing
Jeremy Sheldon is the author of two works of fiction published by Jonathan Cape, The Comfort Zone and The Smiling Affair, as well as a number of anthologised short stories. He is a tutor on the MA in Creative Writing Programme at Birkbeck, University of London, and also at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He has led fiction workshops for the Arvon Foundation and Spread the Word in the UK and has taught internationally for organisations such as the Geneva Writers’ Conference and the British Council in Singapore. In addition to this, Jeremy continues to work as a script editor and development consultant, having spent seven years as a script-reader for several film production companies. He graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at UEA in 1996.
Author and tutor
Richard Skinner is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. His first novel, The Red Dancer about the life of Mata Hari, was published in 2001 by Faber and has been translated into six languages. His second novel, The Velvet Gentleman, a fictionalised account of the life of composer Erik Satie was published in France in 2008. Richard is a tutor at Goldsmith's College, London, where he teaches on the MA in Creative & Life Writing. He has also worked as a reader, tutor, panelist and performer for The Literary Consultancy.
Guitarist, musician and composer
English guitarist Steve Smith is a hugely experienced performer in a variety of styles ranging from classical, through jazz and folk. He is a virtuoso performer of guitar, mandolin and banjo.
He has appeared at the Lincoln Center NYC, the Kennedy Center, DC, the Royal Opera House, London & the Royal Albert Hall, London. Since 1990 he has toured with all the major British Orchestras, including the LSO, LPO and CBSO. In chamber music, he makes regular appearances with the London Sinfonietta and BBC orchestras.
He has worked closely with many top conductors, soloists and composers including; Sir Simon Rattle, Viktoria Mullova and John Adams. Many of the over 30 recordings he has appeared on, have been prize-winning discs. Tours have taken him to the USA, Japan, China, Europe and Scandinavia. His performances have been broadcast worldwide. As composer, he has written popular works and arrangements for guitar; his music receives regular performances and broadcasts. His music has been broadcast in Finland, the UK and the USA.
In 2006, Steve fulfilled a commission from the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, to score the silent film, Underground, by Anthony Asquith; the performance was a public and critical success.
Director of The Literary Consultancy, author and facilitator
Rebecca Swift worked at Virago Press where she first conceived of the idea for TLC which she co-founded with Hannah Griffiths in 1996. She has appeared at numerous literary festivals representing TLC and exploring the relationship between writers and the publishing industry. In addition she has taught poetry and life writing. Her own poetry has been published in Virago New Poets, Vintage New Writing 6, and Driftwood; and she has written an opera libretto for Spirit Child, composed by Jenni Roditi, commissioned by the Lontano Ensemble and Arts Council. She has written and reviewed for the Independent and Guardian as well as edited Letters from Margaret, a volume of letters between Bernard Shaw and Margaret Wheeler and Imagining Characters, a book of conversations between A.S.Byatt and Ignês Sodré, both for Chatto & Windus.
© The Literary Consultancy 2008