NAWE Board of Trustees   

Dr Yvonne Battle-Felton 

I am the Academic Director of Creative Writing at Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education. I have been in HE since 2009 and have taught in the US and the UK. As a writer, academic, and creative practitioner, I create and co-develop projects, platforms, and opportunities to empower people to share their stories. I create projects that encourage students to engage with readers and the wider community and aim to lead by example by participating in and creating community arts projects. Diversity, representation, narrative, and voice are important to me on the page, in the classroom, and in life.

Jonathan Davidson 

Jonathan Davidson has worked for over twenty-five years in arts management and literature development. He is Chief Executive of Writing West Midlands which runs a major programme of writing in education work with children and students.

Francis Gilbert

Dr Francis Gilbert is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is Academic Co-Director of the Connected Curriculum, and Head of the MA Creative Writing and Education. He has been a member of NAWE for some years and has regularly given workshops at its conferences, most recently in 2024 on the Publishing Industry. He has also published articles about creative writing in NAWE's magazine and academic journal. He is a member of the Higher Education Committee and is Co-Principal Editor of NAWE's Journal of Creative Writing Research, Writing in Practice.

Ruth Moore

Ruth Moore is a fiction writer and poet based in Oxford. She is currently pursuing a funded PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter about 'time-playful' children's fiction and silenced histories. Her as-yet unpublished children's novel won the Bath Children's Novel Award in 2020 and her poetry and short fiction have won prizes or been shortlisted in the Bridport Prize, the Historical Writers' Association, Bath Flash Fiction and the Crime Writers' Association. Prior to her PhD, Ruth managed a wide range of collaborations and projects in higher education, arts, and charities, including for the University of Oxford, the Children's Society and theatres. She is a PhD Rep on NAWE's Higher Education committee, volunteers in grassroots football, and co-organises an annual arts conference called Hutchmoot UK.

Jane Moss (Co-Chair)

Jane is based in Cornwall where she hosts local community writing groups, and co-hosts The Writing Retreat which provides in-person and online courses and residential retreats for writers. She has an interest in writing for wellbeing in health and social care contexts and especially in bereavement support. Her book Writing in Bereavement, A Creative Handbook, is published by Jessica Kingsley. Jane’s current work includes a study unit in creative journal writing for fourth year medical students at the Peninsular Medical School. Her doctorate, completed in 2024, has produced a model of practice for a 'community novel' based on participatory research with volunteers in a Cornish Parish. See www.janemoss.com for more information about Jane.

Derek Neale 

Derek Neale is a novelist – The Book of Guardians (Salt, 2012) – script and short story writer, and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University. He edited and co-wrote A Creative Writing Handbook: Developing dramatic technique, individual style and voice (A&C Black/Bloomsbury, 2009); co-authored Writing Fiction and Life Writing (both Routledge, 2009) and was a principle author in Creative Writing: a workbook with readings (Routledge, 2006). Derek is lead educator on the OU/FutureLearn Start Writing Fiction MOOC.

Jocelyn Page (Co-Chair)

Jocelyn Page, a poet from Connecticut, USA, living in London, has published in various journals including The Spectator, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg, South Carolina Review and Poetry Review. Her debut pamphlet, smithereens, was published in 2010 by tall lighthouse press and her 2016 You’ve Got to Wait Till the Man You Trust Says Go was the winner of the Goldsmiths’ Writer Centre’s inaugural Poetry Pamphlet award. She has held residencies at The Reach Climbing Centre in Woolwich and the 999 Club homeless centre. She convenes and teaches English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College, the University of London Worldwide and Verto Education, and is the Resident Creative Consultant for the ‘Just Poetry’ project at Greenpeace International. 

Karina Lickorish Quinn

Karina Lickorish Quinn is a Peruvian-British writer and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University of London. Her debut novel The Dust Never Settles (Oneworld, 2021) explored Peru’s hauntedness by its colonial past. Her second book, a novella called The House of Skin (Stanchion, 2023) is a work of literary horror. Her second novel, The River Dies Quietly, will be published by Oneworld in 2026. Her short prose has been published widely including in Wasafiri, The White Review, The Offing, Palabritas, and the Journal of Latina Critical Feminism. She was featured in Un Nuevo Sol, the first major anthology of British-Latinx writers. Previously Karina was a secondary school English teacher. She now researches the benefits of multilingual approaches to teaching writing in schools.

Heather Richardson

Heather Richardson recently retired as Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University after 18 years where she worked in several roles, including Associate Lecturer and an academic-related post. Her work included module production, the line management of Associate Lecturers and PhD supervision. Prior to becoming an academic she spent fifteen years in healthcare sales and marketing, working for the Wellcome Foundation, Astra Pharmaceuticals and BMI Healthcare before joining a pharmaceutical distributor in Northern Ireland as Sales and Marketing Director. She lives in Belfast.

NB: The elected Board of Trustees may co-opt further members to fill any role which is vacant, provided co-options shall come to an end at the next AGM, when elections will again apply to any vacant positions. One third of the board must retire at the end of each year but can be re-appointed.