Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in London where she works as a primary school teacher. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway. Her poems have appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The North, Ambit and Mslexia. In 2009 she was the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award. Her debut pamphlet, The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls, will be published by tall-lighthouse in May.
Jo Colley is a writer and event organiser who lives in the NE. Originally a prose writer, she has published two poetry pamphlets : As If published by Vane Women, and Punchdrunk, a bilingual work published by Ek Zuban. In November 2007 she published her first full collection, Weeping For The Lovely Phantoms with Salt Publishing Ltd. She has several parallel lives, some of which involve poetry. If she had her way, she’d live in a hut on the beach and make art out of detritus (nothing new there, then Colley). She can be found on the internet at www.jocolley.co.uk.
Rowena Dunn has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck College, University of London, and has had short stories published in The Mechanics’ Institute Review and Tell Tales 3. She spent her teenage years in the West of Scotland before heading south. She has been a corporate tax adviser for several multinational organisations and is now working on her first novel inspired by her experiences living in Moscow in the mid 1990s.
Jonathan Firth has enjoyed writing for his whole life and has started to devote more time to it over the past three years. He is interested in all types of fiction, but particularly novels. After leaving university he spent a few years working as a teacher of English (as a foreign language) before moving into Psychology teaching, and he co-authored a school Psychology textbook in 2006. He lives with his wife and children in Ayrshire. Jonathan joins us for Hothouse.
Emylia Hall grew up in rural Devon, and studied English Literature at the University of York. She always wanted to be a writer, but during five years of working in a London ad agency, somehow, she forgot this. However two winters in the splendour of the French Alps and thankfully, she had remembered it again. Now she lives in the West Country and is both happily and seriously writing her first novel, a story inspired by childhood summers spent in Hungary.
Julie Mayhew finished writing her first novel last year - a black comedy called Red Ink set in East Finchley and Crete - and is now starting work on a new book. Her first commission for BBC Radio 4, an Afternoon Play called Stopgap, will be broadcast on September 8th 2010. You will find Julie’s short stories in Message In the Bottle (Leaf Books), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (Cinnamon press) and on www.ShortStoryRadio.com. More info at www.juliemayhew.co.uk. She joins us for Hothouse.
Alex McRae was born and brought up in London, where she now works
full-time as a broadcast journalist for the BBC's international news
channel, BBC World News Television. Previously, she worked as a
producer for the BBC World Service and as a freelance print journalist
for the Independent and various other newspapers. She studied English
at Oxford, and her poems have been published or are forthcoming in
Poetry Review, the Manhattan Review, Magma
and Nth Position. She
received an Eric Gregory Award in 2009.
Kim Moore is 28 years old and works as a peripatetic brass teacher for Cumbria Music Service. She is in the second year of a part time MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Met and has had poems published or forthcoming in the Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, Mslexia, Staple and Iota.
Emma Vandore is currently head of the economic service at The Associated Press in Paris, She has over a decade of journalism experience in economics, politics and general news. In 2007, her first book, Schizophrenie Francaise (Sego, Sarko, Jacques et moi), was published. It is a humourous take on French politics, and writing it was a walk in the park compared to writing a novel. That's her current challenge - a twisted faerie tale about addiction.
Kimbalena Zeineddine is on sabbatical from an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck University and hopes to complete her first novel this summer. She also teaches English at The American School in London. For some time she thought she was a poet, but never got the hang of concision. She likes the roominess of the novel, but is also strongly attached to the image. Some favourite writers are Mavis Gallant, W.G. Sebald and Virginia Woolf. A native Californian, she transplanted to London many years ago and lives here with her two daughters. Kimbalena joins us for Hothouse.
