In working with groups, I draw on my experience as an English teacher. I try to emphasise that all writers, regardless of perceived ability or experience, can enjoy writing poetry. As well as using a range of different stimuli to start the writing, I am keen to take writers through the various stages of drafting and to encourage them to look critically at their work. I also enjoy working collaboratively with other artists.
Completed PhD research on the Teaching of Poetry in Secondary Schools. Currently Publications Co-ordinator for the National Association for the Teaching of English (part time).
Poetry Pamphlet Collections:
A Sort of Clingfilm (Wide Skirt Press) 1987
Colour Girl (Smith/Doorstop) 1989
Sometime Other than Now (Slow Dancer) 1990
Hunting Ground (Slow Dancer) 1993
Lifting the Language (Shoestring Press) 1997
Poems published in magazines such as Iron, Writing Women, Scratch, Smoke, The North, The Wide Skirt, Poetry Wales and Magma.
Saturday Live, read on BBC1 East Midlands Today.
Performances of my own work given in Huddersfield, Nottingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, London, Kahlsruhe and elsewhere.
Articles about writing in education:
Writers into Schools: the Jackie Kay Experience, in Harrison, Bernard ed. 1994.
The Literate Imagination, David Fulton
Ways into teaching the Ghazal in Goody, Joan ed. 2000.
Multicultural Literature in the Classroom, NATE/Arts Council.
Taking Stock of Poetry in The Secondary English Magazine
Taking Poetry off its Pedestal in English in Education