Creative Writing Residential
Sunday 29th July – Saturday 4th August 2007
Cat Jones – Founder and Teacher
Cat Jones is an experienced teacher who has been working in the profession since 2002. She has taught English, History and Music and has also been Assistant Head of Year. She has been involved in numerous residential courses during her time as a teacher. Cat has also worked as a professional songwriter and last year, she received a Distinction for an MA in Creative and Transactional Writing from Brunel University, gaining high praise for her dissertation; a novel entitled A Hunchback in Heaven. She is currently working towards a PhD in Creative Writing.
Fliss Buckles – Founder and Teacher
Fliss Buckles is a teacher of English and Head of Media Studies at Dormers Wells High school in West London. Before becoming a teacher, Fliss worked for a public relations agency writing marketing literature for a variety of companies. She is extremely experienced at running residential courses for young people having worked for many years for Over The Wall, a charity that provides such courses for children suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses. She is also the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Coordinator for her school, a role that involves regularly leading children on camping expeditions. Fliss currently teaches part time to allow her to study towards an MA in Film Studies at The University of Exeter.
Belinda Seaward
Belinda Seaward is a writer and teacher who began her career as a journalist working for newspapers in Devon and Somerset. She spent ten years living in London during which she wrote for several national newspapers, including the Daily Mail and Sunday Times. She also worked as a journalist in Bahrain before turning to writing fiction. Her first novel, The Avalanche, was published by Constable in 1996 and her second, Hotel Juliet, will be published by John Murray in January 2008. She has a degree in Philosophy and for the past six years has worked as an English teacher at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School in Devon, where she was also head of Critical Thinking. She has recently left teaching to focus on her writing.
Stacie Lewis – Teacher
Originally from Detroit, Stacie Lewis has been working as an English teacher in the UK since 2000. She is currently the Second in Department for English and Media Studies at Dormers Wells High School in West London. Prior to her teacher training, Stacie completed an MA in Postmodernism, Literature, and Contemporary Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London. In addition to teaching, Stacie is also a professional writer who contributes regularly to the Detroit News and her first book, Taking the Plunge, is published by Snowbooks. For more information about Stacie Lewis, click here.
Gareth Griffiths – Teacher
Having completed an MA in Postmodernism, Literature and Contemporary Culture and an MPhil in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, Gareth ‘Griff’ Griffiths, is currently studying towards a PhD in English Literature, specialising in the fiction of H.G. Wells. Griff is responsible for the teaching of this specialism to MA students at Royal Holloway College and is currently taking the College Certificate in Teaching Skills for Higher Education and the Graduate Teaching Programme that will allow him to teach at secondary school level. In addition to writing science fiction, Griff is the author of several academic papers and is also a regular contributor to the Royal Holloway student newspaper, The Orbital and the NUS Online magazine. When he’s not writing or studying, Griff works at The British Museum. |
On the last day of the course the students will present their work to our Guest Writer. This year, we are incredibly fortunate and honoured to have Fay Weldon joining us.
Fay Weldon – Guest Writer
Fay Weldon was born and raised in New Zealand. She read Economics and Psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and worked briefly for the Foreign Office in London, then as a journalist, before beginning a successful career as an advertising copywriter.
Her writing, which includes over twenty novels, five collections of short stories, several, children’s books, non-fiction books and magazine articles, is read around the world and given great
critical acclaim.
Her film and TV work which includes the pilot episode for the television series Upstairs Downstairs, wins enthusiastic viewers by the million, worldwide.
Fay Weldon is a former member of both the Arts Council literary panel and the film and video panel of Greater London Arts. She was Chair of the Judges for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1983, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews in 1990. She was awarded a CBE in 2001. For more information about Fay Weldon, click here. |
