 Brian Moses
Brian Moses lives in the small Sussex village of Crowhurst with his wife, two daughters, a loopy labrador and a collection of bad-tempered chickens.
He first worked as a teacher but has now been a professional children¹s poet for 21 years. To date he has over 180 books published including volumes of his own poetry such as Taking Out the Tigers and Behind the Staffroom Door (Macmillan), anthologies such as The Secret Lives of Teachers and Aliens Stole My Underpants (both Macmillan) and picture books such as Beetle in the Bathroom and Trouble at the Dinosaur Cafe (both Puffin). Over 1 million copies of Brian's poetry books have now been sold by Macmillan and in 2005 he was nominated for both the CLPE Award and the Spoken Word Award.
Brian also visits schools to run writing workshops and perform his own poetry and percussion shows. To date he has visited well over 2500 schools and libraries throughout the UK. He has made several appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, been writer in residence at Castle Cornet on Guernsey and at RAF schools in Cyprus. Recently he has visited several International schools in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, France, Iceland and Ireland. At the request of Prince Charles he spoke at the Prince¹s Summer School for Teachers in 2007 at Cambridge University. He is one of ten children¹s poets invited by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion to feature on the National Poetry Archive.
Find out more about Brian Moses and read some of his poems on The Poetry Zone - www.poetryzone.co.uk and on The National Poetry Archive - www.poetryarchive.org |
 Roy Apps
Roy lives near Rye with his wife and two sons, seventeen chickens, nine ducks, seven sheep, two rabbits, a dog and a cat.
He started his career writing jokes, songs and sketches for comedians such as David Jason, Roy Hudd and Lenny Henry. He is the author of over 50 children's books including the hugely popular How to Handle series for Scholastic and also writes extensively for radio, theatre and TV. In 2001 he was awarded a BAFTA for his children's TV work which included Byker Grove, The Ghost Hunter and Barmy Aunt Boomerang.
You can find out more about Roy at www.royapps.co.uk
BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Reading
Tales From Tate Modern: The Way to Veritas
Written by Roy Apps
Read by Sidney Sloane |
 Clare Bevan
A poet, author, playwright, actor and part-time tricyclist, Clare has written a number of books for children including Fairy Poems, Mermaid Poems and Princess Poems for Macmillan.
When she was still too small to see over the sweet shop counter, Clare was asked to recite her favourite poem and discovered two things about herself; firstly, that she likes the feel of words on her tongue, and secondly, that she loves standing in front of an audience. Since then her main hobbies have always been reading, writing, acting and looking after her stick insect Tutankhamen its great, great, great, great grand-twigs.
You can find out more about Clare on www.poetryzone.co.uk |
 Valerie Bloom
Valerie has published a number of poetry collections with Macmillan and Bloomsbury, plus her story Surprising Joy. She moves easily around the area where poetry and song overlap, in a voice as warm in speaking as in singing, and believes that "part of the beauty of poetry is the music in the words, and a vital part of music is often the poetry in the lyrics". Bloom (b. 1956) first came to England in 1979, and is now based in Kent, but continues to travel around the UK and abroad adding to her thousands of performances, workshops and school visits. Her poetry has become widely known through her books, those of her own poetry and anthologies she has edited, plus a novel, and she was commissioned to write a poem on Celebration for National Poetry Day 2002. At last count, her poetry had been printed in over 250 anthologies, as well as appearing frequently on television, stage and radio.
If children would like to discover more about Valerie and her work they can visit www.poetryarchive.org where they can also hear her reading her poems.
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 James Carter
James Carter is a prize-winning poet and guitarist. He travels all over the UK and abroad to give lively poetry performances and workshops - in schools, libraries and at literary festivals. His poetry titles include Cars Stars Electric Guitars and Orange Silver Sausage (Walker Books). Time-Travelling Underpants and Greetings, Eartlings! (Macmillan) and Hey, Little Bug! (Francis Lincoln). James was the major contributor of poetry materials to the recent Cbeebies TV series Poetry Pie.
A former lecturer at the University of Reading in creative writing and children’s literature, James is the author of four critically-acclaimed and widely-used creative writing books for Primary and Secondary teachers (all Routledge).
James is available for poetry as well as poetry/fiction Able Writers' Days.
Read him, hear him, find him at www.jamescarterpoet.co.uk
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 Donovan Christopher
Donavan has been writing poetry seriously for the past 10 years as a tool for self - expression and to tackle social problems via the sports participation and cultural equality (SPACE) project in Huddersfield.
He is currently working with young people on Rap poetry educational projects. Themes include respect of self and others and an insight to cultural diversity around the world we all share. Dealing with all types of difficult issues he engages the youngsters giving them the forum to share and discuss views, helping them capture and express their thoughts and imagination in a safe environment all done in a fun way.
To find out more about Donovan please visit www.authorsabroad.com |
 Paul Cookson
Paul Cookson was born in 1961 and brought up just outside Preston, in Lancashire. Early ambitions were to play football for Everton or electric guitar in Slade, although, after all the usual exams, he actually qualified as a teacher and taught full-time for five years. He published his first selection of poems in 1980, and has now published over fifteen solo collections for both adults and children for A Twist In The Tale publishers. Paul is poet and editor of the best selling poetry anthology The Works. Paul is currently official poet in residence at the National Football Museum and has poems published in the Everton match-day programme.
Children might like to find out more about Paul at www.poetryzone.co.uk.
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 Jan Dean
Jan Dean's poems are published all over the place. She's in lots of anthologies and her last collection Wallpapering the Cat (Macmillan) was chosen by the Poetry Book Society (Children's Poetry Bookshelf) as BEST SINGLE POET COLLECTION for Spring 2003. She has also written three titles for Hodder's Shakespeare's Stories series - which is accredited by the RSC and retold The Pardoner's Tale - also for Hodder. She performs at Festivals, World Book Day Celebrations and conferences throughout Britain - including Under The Covers, the National Conference for Children's Librarians and Stories from the Web.
Jan is an experienced writer-in-schools and has worked with all age groups - from infants to U3A. For ten years she worked with the Surrey Gifted Writers project run by the LEA. She leads workshops for teachers, student teachers and children, both in schools and during Arts' Festivals. She offers a range of workshops (including introductions to Twelfth Night, As You Like It & Much Ado About Nothing), INSET training, and performances.
For more information on Jan Dean please visit www.jandean.co.uk
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 Alan Durant
Alan has always loved reading, but it wasn't until he was a teenager that he got into writing.
He's now written over seventy books for children - from picture books to young adult thrillers. He writes in many different genres - comedy, mystery, sport, horror, school story, poetry - and his books have won several awards, including The Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children's Books. He is a frequent visitor to schools, libraries and festivals in the UK and abroad, giving talks and performances of his work, and running writing workshops.
Alan is married with three children, for whom most of his stories were created.
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 Chrissie Gittins
She is a trained and experienced teacher, has worked as a poet in schools for fifteen years, and has held various residencies. She has performed at the Hay Festival, the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. She is part of the Poetry Society's poetry-class team and tutors for the Arvon Foundation. Chrissie's first children's poetry collection Now You See Me, Now You... was shortlisted for the inaugural CLPE Poetry Award, 2003. Her second, I Don't Want an Avocado for an Uncle, was a Poetry Book Society 'Choice' for the Children's Poetry Bookshelf, shortlisted for the 2007 CLPE Poetry Award, and was one of four collections selected for the Boys into Books School Library Association booklist. Two of her children's poems won Belmont Poetry Prizes. She has contributed to Cbeebies' Poetry Pie, Michael Rosen's Oxfam CD of Children's Poems, and to a wide range of anthologies. Chrissie also writes poetry and short stories for adults, and plays for BBCR4.
Please visit www.poetryzone.co.uk to read an interview with Chrissie Gittins.
For more information on Chrissie Gittins please visit www.chrissiegittins.co.uk |
 David Harmer
David was a headteacher before becoming a full time writer. His poems are widely anthologised and his latest collection Pirate Poems was published by Macmillan in 2007. David boasts the most innovative and amusing website of all of our writers including a brief (and zany) personal introduction:
David Harmer, like all grown ups, is incredibly old. He vividly remembers living next door to Queen Victoria and taking the dinosaurs for a walk in the park. She was a short woman and had a lot of trouble with the T.Rex , preferring the Titchysaurus and the Poorlypawasaurus…When he was a little boy, he was abducted by aliens from the planet YERKAZOOPLOD who stole away all the bits of his brains to do with sums, football and common sense. These bits never really grew back, even though David tried very hard with the football. Luckily, the aliens told him that reading, writing, poetry, drama and eating fruit cake were all great things.
He lives in Doncaster with his wife Paula, their daughters Lizzie and Harriet and Blossom the Shar Pei. When he isn't working, David enjoys reading, listening to a wide variety of music (especially Bob Dylan), watching Sheffield United and spending time with family and friends.
Please visit www.poetryzone.co.uk to read an interview with David Harmer.
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 Mike Jubb
Sadly, I'm not one of those writers who started making up stories whilst still in the pram! I really struggled at writing during my schooldays. But, in a way, that's one of my strengths, because I know only too well the fear of the empty page and my aim is to relieve children of that fear. That little boy who hated having a pencil in his hand now enjoys writing, particularly poetry.
Mike Jubb is an ex primary school teacher with poems in about 150 anthologies. As well as his own poetry collection for children, and various educational books, Mike created and co-wrote Little Big Mouth, which was a 7-part comedy/drama for children's itv, starring the voice of Jane Horrocks. He's written one picture book, some reading scheme books, and a set of books on creative writing for teachers, A Poetry Teacher's Toolkit.
For more information on Mike Jubb please visit www.teachkidspoetry.com
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Wes Magee
 Wes Magee (b. 1939) was a teacher when he began writing his first poems. A boy in his class complained that there were no dinosaur poems, and Wes set out to write some for him, little realising he was to become a firm favourite in children's poetry, both as poet and editor. He now writes full time, producing poems (for adults too), stories and plays from a hut at the bottom of a large wild garden in the North York Moors, and touring his Poetry Show to theatres and schools around the country.
Several of the poems deal with Wes's experience in schools, sometimes from the point of view of the teachers, sometimes from the point of view of the pupils. The glee at being the first to be 'Down by the School Gate' is particularly delightful for working equally well from both angles.
There is life outside school too. In the introduction to The Very Best of Wes Magee, he writes that "Some of the poems are sad (like 'The Day After'), some are silly (like 'My Dog's First Poem'), some are spooky (like 'The Ghosts of the Grange'), some are serious (like 'Until Gran Died'), and some simply... sunny (like 'What is the Sun?')." 'The Boneyard Rap' is another of the spooky ones, full of rattling bones and scary noises. It's not as alarming written down as it is when Wes performs it, spine-chillingly drawing out the word "wooooooooo!"
Many of the poems provide opportunities for performance, from fingersnaps to French accents, and Wes clearly enjoys the rhythms, letting the rhymes ring out in a resonant voice. He gives helpful introductions to several of the poems, whether to let us know that 'Tracey's Tree' is a true story, or to tell us the form of 'A Week of Winter Weather', and for the other poems in this recording he simply launches into the poems with the kind of gusto that makes it clear why he is a cherished figure in children's poetry. |
 John Mole
John Mole (b. 1941) has won several prizes for his poetry, including an Eric Gregory award, the Cholmondeley Award and the Signal Award, has been Writer in Residence at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and is currently the Poetry Society's Poet in Residence to the City of London.
He trained as a teacher and has worked in both America and Britain, and still often returns to schools to lead poetry workshops and readings. John writes for both adults and children with books published by Puffin, Hodder and OUP. He was a teacher for many years and is an experienced workshop leader.
John has also compiled and presented feature programmes for the BBC.
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 Miriam Moss
Miriam is an award winning author of 75 children's books, both information books and fiction. Her fiction includes picture books, novelty books and poetry, and recently short stories for the adult market. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages. Miriam has had wide experience of working creatively both with children in schools and libraries, and with adults. She offers lively, innovative large group performances, talks, interactive storytelling sessions, readings, seminars, creative writing and poetry workshops. She was born in England but also grew up in Africa, The Middle East and China. She taught English for eight years in the UK and Kenya before becoming a writer. She now lives in East Sussex.
For more information on Miriam Moss please visit www.miriammoss.com
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 Rob Parkinson
Rob Parkinson is a professional storyteller with well over 2 decades of widely varied experience of performing to both children and adults, a writer, a therapist, a talented multi-instrumentalist and a very engaging speaker and trainer.
Rob performs and runs lively workshops for all ages in all sorts of locations, handling both large and small audiences with equal skill and imaginative flair. He has appeared on various TV and radio programmes, chaired the Society for Storytelling in the mid 'nineties and has written extensively on storytelling.
Children can find out more about Rob prior to the day by visiting his website: www.imaginaryjourneys.co.uk
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 John Rice
John Rice is a poet & storyteller who has visited over 2,000 schools, libraries, arts centres, theatres and festivals to read his poetry and tell stories. He has published 13 books for children, young people and adults. His poetry has been included in over 300 contemporary anthologies and educational books as well as being featured regularly on radio and TV. He is Scottish Arts Council's Poet-in-Residence in Glasgow 2008 - 2010 working with the city's culture & education service, the transport system, Glasgow Science Centre, museums, tourist attractions etc. A typical visit to a Primary School usually includes warm-up word games, random writing, drafting and re-drafting and eventually creating a poem that they perform to their peers.
Please visit www.poetryzone.co.uk to read an interview with John Rice.
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 Rachel Rooney
Rachel Rooney trained and worked as a Special Needs teacher for many years before discovering her love of writing poetry. In the last eight years she has had over 60 poems in poetry anthologies for children, has had her poetry broadcast on Radio 4’s programme Poems for Infant Minds and has been shortlisted for the Belmont Poetry Prize. She now leads poetry workshops for West Sussex Gifted and Talented programme, and also leads workshops in schools as a visiting poet. Her first book of collected poems The Language of Cat will be published by Frances Lincoln in May 2011 and her first picture book A Patch of Black will be published by Macmillan later that year.
Rachel lives with her three sons in Brighton. |
 Fred Sedgwick
Fred has written many books on children's writing for publishers such as Routledge. Previously a headteacher he is now a freelance writer who is also a very experienced workshop leader. His own poems are featured in several collections for both adults and children. Some of the published credits of Fred Sedgwick include Thinking About Literacy: Young Children and Their Language, Teaching Literacy: A Creative Approach, and Writing to Learn.
He has written a dictionary of word origins, WHERE WORDS COME FROM (Continuum), SHAKESPEARE AND THE YOUNG WRITER (Routledge) and is currently working on a book on using writers like Robert Louis Stevenson, Dickens and Trollope with children, as well as many classic poems by Thomas Hood, Thomas Hardy and his beloved Christina Rossetti.
His poems for children are widely anthologised. |
 Roger Stevens
Roger Stevens is a popular children's author, poet and performer who visits schools, libraries, festivals and museums all over the UK. Roger wrote Able Writers in Your School (Brilliant Publications), a book for teachers, with Brian Moses. His poems for children appear in more than 200 anthologies. Roger's most recent books are The Jumble Book (Macmillan), children's poems compiled for Dyslexia Action; Let's Recycle Grandad, an anthology for A&C Black; The Monster That Ate the Universe and Why Otters Don't Wear Socks (Macmillan); On My Way to School I Saw a Dinosaur - poems for younger children (Hands-Up Press); The Journal of Danny Chaucer (Poet) (Orion) a verse-novel for teenagers, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Some of his poems can currently be heard on CBeebies Poetry Pie.
For a taste of his work visit Roger's award-winning children's website www.poetryzone.co.uk
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 Kate Williams
Kate is very experienced at bringing poetry to schools and believes that every school is different:
"One might be tiny but the next might be so huge that I need a map just to find the classroom. Some schools combine my visit with others. Once I was trying to evoke the atmosphere of a spooky, haunted old castle, for instance, while, just round the door, a juggler was bouncing balls for another class. I think we ended up with a bouncing ghost. No school visit is ever dull."
Kate has around 70 poems in national children's poetry anthologies produced by publishers such as Oxford University Press, Scholastic and Macmillan, and other poems in publications by Pont Books and the Welsh Joint Education Committee in Wales. Please visit www.poetryzone.co.uk to read an interview with Kate Williams.
For more information on Kate Williams please visit www.freewebs.com/kate-williams |
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