Our Authors.

TANIA AHSAN is a journalist, author and artist based in London. She has previously written travel and lifestyle pieces for a variety of UK publications including Metro, The Guardian, The London Paper, Psychologies and Natural Health. She has edited magazines for a variety of publishers including IPC Media and Feast Publications. She is considered a mind, body, spirit expert and her first book is THE BRILLIANT BOOK OF CALM (Infinite Ideas, May 2008).

Tania’s interests include vintage and retro living, counter-culture and alternative healing. Her paintings and sculptures are inspired by tribal and ritual art and are held in a number of international private collections.

Her website is www.taniaahsan.com

Books:

• THE BRILLIANT BOOK OF CALM (Infinite Ideas, May 2008).

DR JENNIFER ASHCROFT is a director of the Doctoral Clinical Psychology course at Lancaster University. She has been involved as co-director of the course since 1985. In addition, she has always worked clinically for a percentage of her time, currently with patients in a pain clinic but previously in a breast cancer unit, a GP surgery, and a well women centre.

She gained her PhD in psychology from the University of Wales and then did her clinical psychology training based at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. She is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Hobbies include:

• books (favourites – The Blind Assassin; The God of Small Things)
• music (favourites – Verve; Muse; Leonard Cohen; Nick Cave)
• comedy (favourites – Russell Brand, Peter Kay)
• TV (favourites – Six feet Under; Dexter)

Publications to date:

numerous academic papers (many related to psychosocial effects of breast cancer); articles in Slimmer magazine in the 80s, plus three books:

• Ashcroft, J.J. & Owens, R.G. (1986) Weight Control in Pregnancy. Thorsons.
• Ashcroft, J.J. & Owens, R.G. (1987) Watch Your Child's Weight. Oxford University Press.
• Ashcroft, J.J. & Ashcroft, J.B. (1989) The Psychology of Weight Control (‘Get Slim and Stay Slim’). Oxford University Press. This book is also published in Italian, Spanish, and Malay

SHARON BYRNE is a playwright, screenwriter and Novelist. She is currently working on her next screenplay with co-writer Melissa Garner called ‘The Trophy Shop’. Sharon lectures at the University of Kent in Writing for Stage and Screen and independently, teaching Fiction and Poetry for a mental health charity known as Together. Sharon has a BA in Creative Writing from Middlesex University. GUTTED, an adaptation from the play, THE BLUECOATS, is under option by Flick Features. GUTTED was short listed at the Moondance Film Festival in 2007.

Films:

• GUTTED option under contract by John Deery, Flick Features.

Plays:

• ‘THE BLUE COATS’ produced and directed by Sharon Byrne as part of ‘Wordfest’ for the Canterbury Festival.
• CHARLIE’S WAKE, produced and directed by Anne O’Leary, at the Finborough Theatre, London.

PAUL EMANUELLI was born in Stoke-on-Trent, of Welsh parents and Italian grandparents. He went to University in Cardiff and stayed in Wales for a few years before moving to Shropshire and then to Somerset. Paul studied creative writing for several years at his local further education college and on occasional courses at Bath University, concentrating at first on short stories. He was a prize winner in the short story competition at the Wells Literary Festival in 2004. "Avon Street" is his first novel. It is set in Victorian Bath in 1850, a city which by then was in decline. Going behind the Georgian facades beloved of innumerable period dramas, it exposes a city rife with poverty, crime and hypocrisy. Paul is now working on a second historical novel, also based in Somerset. He lives outside Bath with his wife and two children.

LINDA FLYNN has had eight educational books published to date; six with the Heinemann Fiction Project. In addition she has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, including theatre reviews and several articles on dogs.

Linda’s particular interest is in humorous writing, especially for a young audience. Her fiction for pre-teens, My Dad’s a Drag, won Best First Chapter in the Writers’ Billboard competition. Linda Flynn also works as a Public Relations Officer in a school and as a Head of English, so she enjoys reading children’s literature. In her free time Linda likes to swim and to walk her rescue dogs.

Linda is a member of the Society of Authors and the National Union of Teachers. Her website is: www.lindaflynn.org.uk

MELISSA GARNER holds a degree in English [Creative Writing/ Drama] from UCLA and began her working career in film, where she worked with such legends as George Lucas and Aaron Spelling. Her productions are diverse and range from “Eerie, Indiana” to “Equal Justice”. Melissa’s first UK series was for Channel Four and entitled “Dirty Weekend” where she documented all the music festivals in England in the summer of 1997. She has also directed trailers, commercials, sponsorship and idents. Her work includes such high profile campaigns as: “The Shooting Gallery” with Shane Meadows, “Equinox”, “The Turner Prize”, “TFI Friday”, “The Eleven o’ Clock Show”, “The Big Breakfast” and “Something for the Weekend.” She is currently writing feature films [“Gutted”, “The Trophy Shop”] with Irish playwright Sharon Byrne and has just completed her first novel.

Films:

• GUTTED option under contract by John Deery, Flick Features

KIM GILMOUR has been a technology journalist for more than ten years. Her interest in all things internet-related emerged after she discovered the web while sitting in her university's computer lab back in 1995. (One of the first websites she ever visited was the Internet Movie Database.)

Born in Sydney, Australia, Kim completed an undergraduate journalism degree at Charles Sturt University in western New South Wales, before moving to London in 2000. She enjoys writing about how the internet can benefit society and has written for Which? Computing, Web User, Computer Shopper, Internet Magazine and Practical Photography.

In her spare time Kim enjoys independent travel (in 2007 she travelled overland from London to Bangkok and has also visited the micronation known as the Sovereignty of Sealand, which consists of a disused WWII gun platform). Her other interests are photography and writing - she's self-published a novel for teenagers, called Drive to Nowhere.

Her website is at www.kimgilmour.com.

NICK GREEN is an all round writer who isn't round, but has been writing for the screen for 13 years. Having done an assortment of unlikely jobs, he has been fortunate to have accrued a broad experience of life that informs his writing. His CV encompasses spec feature scripts and commissions in various genres. His career has taken him to destinations that include Munich, Vilnius, Johannesburg, and Kuwait. Nick places great emphasis on story structure, and feels that appealing, effective dialogue sounds like it's found, not forced.

Nick is also a poet (and photographer), and his prose includes children's stories, short stories, and monologues. Naturally he is writing 'that novel', too, and is internationally valued as a fiction and non-fiction ghostwriter - a discipline helped by his extensive experience as a copywriter. Nick has also published a very well received non fiction book which discusses ethics and philosophy in often abstract, sometimes ambiguous and always pithy ways. It's a blast, really…

Films:

Produced (Commissioned) Scripts

• MINOTAUR (Feature. Released: Fall ‘06) Meltemi Entertainment Ltd. Prod: Kim Barnes Dir. Jonathan English. Cast: Rutger Hauer, Tony Todd, Tom Hardy (not shooting script)
• ONE ARMED BANDITS (promo feature script) for Tanner Productions. Prod: Patrick Lavelle Dir: Richard Stonehouse

In Production

• THE WOLF IN THE SUN (Feature script – re-write for Takhayal Entertainment)

Commissioned Scripts

• THE CELESTIAL NAVIGATOR – (Feature) private client EL PASO (Feature; adapted from the novel ‘Dead in El Paso by Michael Launer)
• THE GOLDEN SILENCE (Feature; adapted from the novel of the same name written by Paul Johnston) for Argovela Films. Prods: James Mimikos, Marwan Akawi
• YOUNG GODS (Feature) for Salad Films Limited Dir: Craig Winchcombe 18 (TV drama pilot) for private client
• KUWAIT (Feature; adapted from the book ‘Invasion Kuwait’ by Jehan Rajab) for Takhayal Entertainment Prod: Youssef el-Deeb
• BOUDICA (Feature) For Peak Viewing. Dir. Paul Matthews Prod. Liz Matthews THE CROP (Treatment, with Glynis Barber)
• THE SILENCING (Thriller Treatment) For Meltemi Entertainment Ltd/Advanced Film
• NETFRIENDS (webcast comedy script) For Ichoose TV ltd.
• THE CHAIN (Feature script re-write for Red Mercury Productions).
• BROKEN (Feature script re-write for Red Mercury Productions)

AMANDA HALLAY is a novelist, journalist, cultural trend analyst and university lecturer. She grew up in England but now lives in a ludicrously ‘40s home in the Connecticut hills. She is the International Fashion Editor of ‘Couture’ and ‘Men Mode’ magazines, and currently teaches Cultural History at a leading design school in New York. In her novels, Amanda uses the comedic form to explore various aspects 20th Century popular culture (and the people who flounder therein!). Her first novel, ‘FAB!’, pokes affectionate fun at almost every aspect of Sixties Britain (including gangland twins and The Eurovision Song Contest), whilst her second novel, ‘DOLE’, deals with bedsits, ‘gender-bending’ and sex-murder in Thatcherite London. She has just started work on her third book (‘Chadwick Brandon Bailey and the Mutilated Hulas’), which takes place in Post-War Honolulu.

Amanda holds a B.A (Hons) in Art History from The American University of Paris, and an M.A in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University College. Her interests include playing the guitar, swing dancing, cocktail culture, and an increasingly indiscriminant love of anything ‘retro’.

SARAH HERMAN is a very bright young writer. Sarah holds a 1st class degree in Journalism and has worked for Summersdale Publishers. She is now an assistant editor for Titan Publishing Group. Her first book DOES ANYTHING EAT SHIT has sold more than 30,000 copies and continues to sell very well.

Books:

• I LOVE BABIES: AND OTHER LIES HE’LL TELL TO GET YOU INTO BED (Summersdale, 2008)
• DO WORMS HAVE WILLIES? (co-author, Summersdale, 2008)
• THE UNOFFICIAL FACEBOOKER’S SOCIAL SURVIVAL GUIDE (co-author, Summersdale, 2008)
• DOES ANYTHING EAT SHIT? (Summersdale)
• Audio book narrator credits for Summersdale: GET TOP MARKS IN YOUR EXAMS AND GAP YEAR VOLUNTEER (2007).

PETER HARRODINE is an up and coming novelist. He is married with 2 children (and a succession of cats). Pete grew up in Birmingham, where he spent a couple of years travelling around Australia and for the last decade has lived in rural Scotland, in the lodge house of an old country estate outside Edinburgh.

Pete has worked on and off for many years as an I.T. technical author and writer, worked as an extra in both T.V. and film (his most acclaimed role to date was as 'main corpse' in an episode of Taggart) but writing fiction is what makes him happiest.

He is currently putting the final touches to his first novel KISSING TRISHA SIX TIMES.

NICOLA HILL is the author of A VERY PINK WEDDING, published by HarperCollins in 2007. She is a co-founder of gay-friendly-wedding-venues.com, an award winning website that helps gay men and lesbians plan their big day.

A former Guardian journalist and graduate of the London School of Economics, Nicola has worked for a number of charities in fundraising and publications departments and runs a freelance editorial service. She lives with her partner, Laura McCaffrey in north London.

Her website is www.everythingeditorial.co.uk

Books:

• A VERY PINK WEDDING: A GAY GUIDE TO PLANNING YOUR PERFECT DAY (HarperCollins, 2007).
• GUIDE TO GAY ADOPTION (BAAF, 2009)

STEVE HILL is a technology journalist, author and lecturer. Steve has worked as a journalist for over ten years before moving into academia. He held senior editorial positions at EMAP and Paragon Publishing, before being appointed as senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University. He now lectures in electronic publishing on the journalism degree at Solent University. His research interests include: convergence journalism and modern magazine production methods. He continues to write on a freelance basis. He has also written for the Sunday Express, The Independent, News Statesman and New Media Age. Steve holds an undergraduate degree from UWE Bristol, a postgraduate journalism diploma from Highbury College, Portsmouth and is studying for an Mprof in Media Practice.

Books:

• EBAY.CO.UK FOR DUMMIES (with Collier & Hoskyn, Wiley, 2007)
• 201 ESSENTIAL INTERNET TIPS (Paragon Publishing, 1999)
• EBAY BUSINESS ALL-IN-ONE (Wiley, 2009)

JAMES LARK’S writing ranges from prose to plays, song lyrics, sketches, monologues and scripts for radio and film; he co-wrote Fringe, a complete guide to the Edinburgh Fringe (Friday Books, 2006), and has written and performed several character monologues for BBC Radio, one of which won a Jerusalem Radio Award in 2004. They also commissioned him to write The "Diversity Explored" Seminar, which was broadcast in September 2005. Since learning many things about writing comedy in the Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club he has written for Ealing Live!, Focus Theatre Company, NewsRevue and The Friday Thing, as well as co-founding improvisation company The Uncertainty Division, which has involved surprisingly little writing.  

His writing often dovetails neatly with his love of theatre and music, most recently in his sell-out show Tony Blair – the Musical at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe, which won him a commendation in the first MTM:UK Edinburgh Musical Awards for best book. He wrote and starred in his 2006 one-man musical comedy The Rise and Fall of Deon Vonniget, a culmination of years of traipsing around venues all over the country singing comic songs about cheese. He has also written several short films plus a sitcom pilot (appropriately entitled "The Sitcom") and is currently working on a couple of feature-length screenplays. Further information about his work can be found at www.jameslark.co.uk

RAY MURRAY has been associate creative director of a large American advertising agency, where his work won First Prize at the Cannes International Advertising Film Festival and Highly Commended in the American Television and Radio Commercials Festival. He has run his own advertising consultancy, and has headed a graphic design and advertising course at a large college in the West Country. Married, he now lives in Oxfordshire with his wife Joan, where he concentrates on writing children’s and young teenage fiction.

ADELE NOZEDAR has packed quite a lot into her life so far. She’s been a musician in a cult band, then she owned an indie record label and ran a Major; had a successful PR company; is trained in massage and colour therapy, and is currently the owner of a VERY remote residential recording studio in Wales (one of the few places left in the world where Sat Nav can’t give the directions, hoorah!). She is also a photographer and latterly an author. THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS was published via HarperCollins in 2006, and May 2008 sees the publication of THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SECRET SIGNS AND SYMBOLS. She’s currently working on several projects, including an astounding Tarot Set (illustrated by renowned fine artist Linda Sutton) based on the myths, folklore and legends surrounding birds.

Current passions:
MUSIC… ‘Charmed and Strange’ by Jo’av.
BOOK…any fat dictionary from the late 19th Century.
SCENT…wet mud.
GEMSTONE…Tourmaline.
FOOD…mango with a squeeze of lime juice. And chocolate. Of course.

Books:

• THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS (HarperCollins, 2006)
• THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SECRET SIGNS AND SYMBOLS (HarperCollins, 2008)

NICOLA SOMERSCALES spent her childhood writing stories about far away worlds, and now, after 12 years working in various administrative positions, has decided to enjoy a second childhood.

She grew up in the West Midlands, and after pursuing her artistic bent at university and gaining a BA (Hons) in Visual Communication, she relocated to the North Lincolnshire area with her fiancé, where they married and started a family together. After completing a course in proofreading and copy editing, Nicola realised her real passion still lay with the written word, and, once again, she immersed herself in imaginary worlds, writing a number of science fiction novels and short stories in her spare time. She also joined the on-line writing community 'Universal Writers Group' in October 2006, and was soon granted Assistant Manager status in recognition of her work helping others edit their writing.

Having now completed one of her novels, PRECIOUS COMMODITIES, to a standard she feels satisfied with, Nicola is ready to launch her writing career. In addition, she is also in the final editing stage of a short story called THE AUCTIONEER'S PRIZE, which should soon be added to the publishing schedule of the e-zine 'Bewildering Stories'.

FEARGUS O’SULLIVAN is a London-born writer and journalist. His first book, a collection of recipes from films called PULP KITCHEN, was published by Boxtree in October 2007. He writes weekly as restaurant critic for The London Paper and is a regular contributor to several other newspapers and magazines, having written major pieces for The Guardian, as well as a weekly column on food and film for The Times. Beyond his writing experience, he also worked as a lecturer in film history, an events curator for the National Film Theatre, a cultural adviser for a warlord in the Caucasus, a walking tour guide and a book dealer. He lives in London and Berlin.

Books:

• PULP KITCHEN: RECIPES FOR THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE HUNGRY (Boxtree, October 2007)

A. J. ROUND was born in Belfast but grew up in Glasgow. She read English at Oxford University and lectured at King’s College, London for nine years. She has won prizes for poetry and short stories, including the 2002 Sid Chaplin Short Story Competition, and studied screenwriting at the London College of Printing.

She is currently working on her second novel, and plans for future works include a dark story of betrayal set in New Zealand, a political thriller based in Northern Ireland in the early ‘70s, and a novel about love, faith and obsession amid the chaos of contemporary London.

She lives with her partner, who is also a writer, and their two Russian Blue cats. When not writing she enjoys music, reading, road running and snowboarding.

CJ STONE is a columnist and author with four books to his credit: Fierce Dancing (Faber & Faber 1996), Last of the Hippies (Faber & Faber 1999), Housing Benefit Hill (AK Press 2001) and The Trials of Arthur (with Arthur Pendragon, Element Books 2003). Columns have included Housing Benefit Hill and CJ Stone's Britain in the Guardian Weekend, On The Edge in the Big Issue, On Another Planet in the Whitstable Times and Written In Stone in Prediction magazine. He is currently working on two new columns, and his latest book, the "biography" of a well-known supernatural being. He lives in Whitstable in Kent and, when not at his desk, is a part-time postman, which he describes as "like a four-hour workout every morning". He is almost exactly 20,000 days old. He can be contacted at www.cjstone.co.uk.

MARK TORRENDER was born in Sacramento, California in 1963 and grew up in Braintree, Massachusetts. He began writing novels at age 16, concentrating on the science fiction genre. After working on two horror film scripts with Hollywood's Little Slices of Death productions, Mark devoted his time to short stories. Many of these have been published online and in anthologies.

Returning to adult fiction, Mark has recently completed 'Blood Family', a mystery adventure novel that gives the vampire legend a new twist. Mark is currently living just outside of London.

DEE WEAVER is Northumbrian but now living in Yorkshire, which is about as far south as she wants to be. About twenty years ago, after an eclectic career path, she settled in an ethical wholefood distribution company which is among the most successful workers’ co-operatives in the UK.

Her current passions (apart from reading and writing, obviously) are ghosts, history, rock music, Formula 1, and Jacobean embroidery.

In the summer of 2001 she started learning the craft of novel writing. Drawing on her varied experiences in veterinary medicine, interior design, and the occult, the result is THE WINTER HOUSE, a paranormal romance set in North West England.

JAMIESON WOLF is an Ottawa Ontario Canada based writer. He has been writing since a young age when he realized he could be writing instead of paying attention in school. Since then, he has created many worlds in which to live his fantasies and live out his dreams.

He is the author of The Ghost Mirror, a dark tale for children and Light In the City of Shadows, a collection of fiction. Jamieson is also the author of several romance novels, two works of non-fiction and several works of fiction.

He currently lives in Ottawa Ontario Canada with his husband Robert and his cat, Mave, who thinks she's a person. You can find out more about Jamieson by visiting his home page here: www.jamiesonwolf.com