User:Cindamuse/Workshop/Walden Writers

The members of the Walden Writers co-operative are published authors who live in or close to Saffron Walden, Essex. The co-operative was set up in 2008 to cross-promote the work of its members, to organise literary events, to exchange information and to give one another mutual support. Walden Writers welcome new members and enquiries from the general public (contact them initially through author websites). They have produced three issues of a literary magazine and they also run workshops under the auspices of various literary and arts festivals.

History
It used to be that writers wrote, and publishers printed and sold their books. 'Gentlemen publishers' befriended and nurtured their authors, guiding their unworldly talents through the harsh realities of the commercial world. Now budgets are tight, bookshops are closing down and authors are under even greater pressure, yet they are more isolated. Neither publishers nor even agents are able to provide the support that was once the norm. Not only do authors have to write their books, they have to sell and promote them - a latter day recluse like J.D. Salinger would never have published or made a success of the Catcher in the Rye.

This was the background to the Walden Writers, which came together in November 2008 after Corzine and Everett met for a chat over coffee in Coucou's in the delightful market town of Saffron Walden. The idea that came out of this meeting was to bring together a group of professional local authors who would work together as a co-operative to promote and support each other; this was the beginning of an unlikely alliance of a disparate group of writers who have subsequently found a great deal of common ground. Walden Writers is a model of writers taking on and engaging directly with their public.

Literary Festivals
The co-operative is still a very young organisation but has already run a range of events  at assorted literary, arts and book festivals and also the SW Arts Festivals. Members also speak in schools and have an active outreach programme. Individually most of the Walden Writers were already seasoned speakers at literary festivals and academic institutions when Walden Writers was formed having lectured, for example, in Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Arhus, Copenhagen, Dhaka, Kathmandu and Antananarivo.

Members
Amy Corzine's publications include a popular science book called The Secret Life of the Universe: the Quest for the Soul of Science, a family travel guide called Take the Kids: Ireland, which contains fiction, a graphic novel script for Bronte's Jane Eyre, poems, even herbal medicine reports. She may be contacted through the Society of Authors (UK).

Barry Kaufmann-Wright is a former keeper at Jersey Zoo with Gerald Durrell through the 1960s and more recently a Police Wildlife Crime Officer with Essex Police for 22 years. In 2003 he won the prestigious WWF Wildlife Law Enforcer of the Year award. He is now a Wildlife Consultant and lectures on a range of subjects including Jersey Zoo and the work of Gerald Durrell, The Role of a Police Wildlife Crime Officer and Wildlife in the Garden. His inspirations come from the natural world and animals. His latest book is Chocka's Story.

Betty Morgan Bowen writes for children.

Carol Ann Frazer writes novels, short stories and poetry. She has had short stories broadcast on Radio 4 and for ten years she read her own stories live on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. She has had a romantic novel set in Majorca published, and many short stories in national magazines and in one collection. She has had poetry published and has written a teenage novel, which awaits a publisher. She teaches Creative Writing to both children and adults and has run workshops with other writers.

Clare Mulley is the author of "The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children" (2009), which won the Daily Mail Biographers Club Prize. and has recevied favourable reveiws elsewhere in the press. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown described it as "A truly brilliant book". Reportedly, the prime minister read the book while away on holiday and was moved to offer the unsolicited review. In 2007, Mulley was honored as the recipient of the Daily Mail Biographers' Club Prize for The Woman Who Saved the Children. As noted on the copyright page of the book, all of the author's royalties are donated to Save the Children's international programmes. Jebb never married or had children of her own. She was a noted humanitarian whose visionary ideas permanently changed the way that the world regards and treats children. Mulley has contributed to The Arvon Book of Life Writing (2010) among other publications. She is a seasoned speaker at literary, academic and history festivals, bookshops and libraries, and has been heard on BBC Radio 4 and 2, as well as local radio. She talks on Eglantyne, and the craft of biography, and is currently working on a biography for Macmillan on Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the first woman to work as a secret agent for the British in the Second World War.

Ingrid Soren writes and lectures on Dante and T.S.Eliot. Her recently published Meeting Dante introduces the reader to The Divine Comedy, following its author as he travelled around 14th-century Italy writing his ‘poem of the cosmos’. Ingrid is currently working on Dante’s dream, a version of Dante for children. Ingrid’s book on Zen and Horseriding was published by Time Warner; she has a passion for nature and wildlife with a special interest in ecology and conservation.

Jacqueline Cooper is editor of the Saffron Walden Historical Journal and author of books on Essex and Hertfordshire.

Jane Wilson-Howarth’s writing all has a travel theme. Her first big trip was to the Himalayas at the age of 22 and this wasn't a cure for itchy feet, but an appetitizer. Over a succession of further expeditions, Jane’s letters home evolved into published prose. She writes regularly for Wanderlust (magazine) and on occasion for The Independent newspapers; responses to travel and health questions are also run in other national newpapers. She has written a travel narrative about Madagascar which Dervla Murphy in reviewing another book in the Times Literary Supplement described as the finest travel book thus far written about Madagascar. There is a Nepal memoir in circulation which has been favourably reviewed in the press. She has also written health guides and she has some broadcasting experience. She lectures widely on healthy travel – to lay and medical audiences – and has a particular interest in dangerous and nasty creatures. Jane has contributed chapters to numerous travel guides and textbooks.

Jeremy Collingwood taught law in Zambia and then worked for the Director of Public Prosecutions in London. After ordination, he held incumbencies in Bristol and Guildford before retiring to Saffon Walden. He is interested in history, politics, travel, religion and biography. He has written on African law as well as the following books: Hannah More: The woman who brought hope to England's darkest places, As A Witness to the Light: The story of Chengelo School in Zambia, and Mr Saffron Walden: The life and times of George Stacey Gibson (1818-1883).

Lizzie Sanders has been closely involved with three books about Littlebury, notably Littlebury, a Parish History which she co-edited and to which she also contributed, and has had articles published the Saffron Walden Historical Journal. In her professional life she is an artist and illustrator. Recently her clients have included the BBC’s Countryside magazine and Mitchell Beazley.

Martyn Everett was formerly Local Studies Librarian in Saffron Walden, and has been the Secretary of the Saffron Walden Town Library Society for many years. His publications include The Buildings of Saffron Walden (with drawings by architect, Donald Stewart), Saffron Walden: A Pictorial History (with Howard Newman), and Saffron Walden and the English Civil War.

Penny Speller writes children’s books and has published books for young children, stories in anthologies and a picture book. She has an MA in Writing for Children, is interested in the academic study of children’s literature and teaches creative writing workshops. Penny has written short stories, and about Lewis Carrol, Robert Louis Stevenson and war in children’s fiction.

Rik Gammack writes fantasy and science-fiction. He has had several short stories published and (under a pseudonym) one novel. He is currently working on a novel involving circuses, hot-air balloons and licentious burlesque. Cheddar Gorging was the Winner of the Cambridge Writers Short Story Competition 2008

Rosemary Hayes worked for Cambridge University Press and then for some years she ran her own publishing company, Anglia Young Books. Her first novel, ‘’Race Against Time’’ was runner-up for the Kathleen Fidler Award and since then she has written over thirty books for children. Her books, mostly for teenagers, cover a wide range of subjects including stories of young British Muslims, historical novels and most recently, stories from severely bullied children and how they were recovered. Rosemary is currently a reader for a well known authors’ advisory service and she also runs creative writing workshops for both children and adults.

Saumya Balsari is the author of The Cambridge Curry Club and winner of The Cambridgeshire Book of the Decade 2010. The novel is based on her play The Curry Club for the Kali Theatre Company with a rehearsed reading at the Soho Theatre, London, in 2003. It is the subject of an academic paper by Finnish researcher Joel Kuortti. The book is a postcolonial text and reference at universities around the world, and has been discussed in a doctoral dissertation. Saumya Balsari is working on a second comic novel about Cuban salsa and a book of short stories. She is currently Writer in Residence and Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, Centre for Latin American Studies. Saumya Balsari has been named one of Britain's leading South Asian women.

Victor Watson is the editor of The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English. and has co-edited several critical works on Children’s literature. He also wrote Reading Series Fiction and co-wrote Coming of Age in Children’s Literature In September 2009 he published his first novel for children, Paradise Barn. A sequel was published in 2011, "The Deeping Secret". He has a growing collection of British annuals for children which he plans to donate to Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle, England. He often talks on the history of children’s literature.