Fresh air in the classroom
Teaching literature to young people Corpus Christi College Oxford
7 to 13 April 2002 
Alan Pulverness, co-chair of conference. Alan Pulverness is the author of All in a Word: literature in language teaching and co-author of a number of ELT textbooks, including Macmillan Short Course Programme. His most recent publications are Right Now 1 & 2 and Changing Skies: The European coursebook for advanced learners. An Associate trainer with the Norwich Institute for Language Education, he is Joint Principal Examiner for CEELT (the Cambridge Examination in English for Language Teachers) and Editor of Folio (the journal of the Materials Development Association) and of 'IATEFL Conference Selections'.
Claudia Ferradas Moi, co-chair of conference. Claudia Ferradas Moi is founder and co-director of the T S Eliot Bilingual Studies Centre, Banfield, Buenos Aires. She also lectures in English Literature at the Instituto de Enseñanza Superior en Lenguas Vivas 'Juan Ramon Fernández', Buenos Aires, and is lecturer in charge of the virtual classroom on 'Strategies for the Teaching of a Foreign Language', Virtual University, National University of Quilmes. She has published a number of articles on literature, rock poetry and hypertext fiction, and is one of the contributors to Issues in Materials Development.
Barbara Bleiman Barbara Bleiman is an advisory teacher at the English and Media Centre. For many years she worked as an English teacher in secondary schools and was Head of English and Senior Teacher at Islington Sixth Form Centre (now the Sixth Form Centre, City and Islington College). She has written and co-written many publications, for Longmans and for the English and Media Centre (EMC) including Headless and Other Non-Fiction Texts, The Poetry Pack, the EMC A Level Series, Twelfth Night Video Pack, Three Modern Novels, The Beautiful Game and the recent EMC KS3 Series title The Poetry Book. She is joint editor of emagazine, EMC’s subscription magazine for A Level students.
Robert Eaglestone Robert Eaglestone works on contemporary and twentieth century literature, literary theory and philosophy. His publications include Ethical Criticism: Reading after Levinas (1997), Doing English (1999), Postmodernism and Holocaust Denial (2001) and articles on Beckett, Carter, ethics, contemporary European philosophy, science, the Holocaust, archaeology and historiography. He is currently working on a book called The Holocaust and the Postmodern which looks at literature, history and philosophy after the ‘Final Solution’. He has written for the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), Times Literary Supplement (TLS), The Independent and The Guardian and has recently given seminars for the British Council in Egypt and Hungary. He is on the British Council Literature, Language and Culture advisory panel. He is the series editor of Routledge Critical Thinkers. He also has a special interest in pedagogy and is a member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching.
Julia Eccleshare Julia Eccleshare is a writer, broadcaster and lecturer as well as Children’s Books Editor of the Guardian. She has chaired the Nestles Smarties Book prize for the past eight years, is chair of the Branford Boase first novel prize and is also a judge for the Whitbread Children’s Book Prize. She won the Eleanor Farjeon Award 2000 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to children’s books. In addition to numerous anthologies her books include, Treasure Islands:The Woman’s Hour Guide to Children’s Reading (BBC Books), A Guide to the Harry Potter Novels (Continuum), and Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter: Portraits of children’s writers (National Portrait Gallery).
Anne Fine, the Children’s Laureate (2001-2003) Anne Fine is a distinguished writer for children of all ages. Her novel Goggle-Eyes won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize as well as Britain’s most coveted award for children’s literature, the Carnegie medal. She won the Carnegie medal again for Flour Babies, which also won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award. Among her many other prizes are the Smarties Prize (Bill’s New Frock); a second Whitbread Award (The Tulip Touch) and many regional children’s choice awards. In 1990 and again in 1993 she was voted Publishing News’ Children’s Author of the Year. In 1998 she was the UK nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and in 2001 became the second Children’s Laureate. Adaptations of Bill’s New Frock and Goggle-Eyes have been screened by the BBC and Twentieth Century Fox filmed her novel Madame Doubtfire as Mrs Doubtfire. In addition to writing for children, Anne Fine has published several highly acclaimed black comedies for adults. The Killjoy won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and both Taking the Devil’s Advice and Telling Liddy have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her latest adult novel, All Bones and Lies, was published in February 2001. Anne Fine’s work has been translated into over twenty-five languages. She has two grown up daughters and lives in County Durham.
Bernard MacLaverty Bernard Mac Laverty was born in Belfast (14.9.42) and lived there until 1975 when he moved to Scotland with his wife, Madeline, and four children. He has been a Medical Laboratory Technician, a mature student, a teacher of English and, for two years in the mid eighties, Writer-in-Residence at the University of Aberdeen. After living for a time in Edinburgh and the Isle of Islay he now lives in Glasgow. He is a member of Aosdana in Ireland. He has published four collections of short stories and four novels. He has written versions of his fiction for other media - radio plays, television plays, screenplays. He has won many awards and prizes, including an award from Northern Ireland Arts Council in 1975 for stories contributed to periodicals; award from Scottish Arts Council, 1978, for Secrets and Other Stories; Pharic McLaren Award for the best radio play from Radio Industries of Scotland and second place for Pye Radio Award, both 1981, both for My Dear Palestrina; award from Scottish Arts Council and runner up for fiction prize from the Guardian, both 1981, both for Lamb; Jacobs Award for best play from Radio Telefis Eireann for television production My Dear Palestrina; award from Scottish Arts Council, 1982, and arts award from the Irish Sunday Independent, 1983, both for A Time to Dance and Other Stories; award for best screenplay from the London Evening Standard, 1984, for Cal; award of bronze medal for screenplay of Lamb; also voted best film by the youth jury and by the ecumenical jury, Lucarno Film Festival, 1987; award from Scottish Arts Council, 1988, for The Great Profundo and Other Stories and joint winner of 'Scottish Writer of the Year, 1988' (McVities prize) and the Irish Post Award for 1989. Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship (1994). Walking the Dog shortlisted for The Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year (1994). Grace Notes has been awarded The Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award (1997). It has been short-listed for The Booker Prize, The Writers Guild Best Fiction Book, The Stakis Scottish Writer of the Year, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the Mind Book of the Year and was a runner-up for the Kerry Ingredients Book of the Year. The Anatomy School was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year (2001). His books for young children include A Man in search of a Pet (Blackstaff Press 1978) and Andrew McAndrew (Walker Books 1988).
John McRae John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies at the University of Nottingham and holds regular Visiting Professor posts in Brazil, China, France, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. With Ronald Carter he is co-author of the Routledge History of English Literature. He has also written on a wide range of literary and linguistic subjects and is author of Now Read On, a course in multi-cultural reading (1999), and The Language of Poetry (1998), both published by Routledge. With Ronald Carter he is series editor of Penguin Student Editions, which now numbers over 20 titles, including Bernard MacLaverty's Cal, and for which Hilary Jenkins has edited Wide Sargasso Sea and Frankenstein.
Paul Munden Paul Munden’s poetry has been published by Faber and Faber and in many other anthologies. He is an experienced tutor of creative writing both in schools and universities. He is currently Director of the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE).
Guy Pringle In his time Guy Pringle has marketed educational books for all ages, Collins and COBUILD dictionaries into most countries around the world and high profile fiction and non-fiction into all the UK high street book chains. He initiated the multi-publisher 'Celebrate the National Year of Reading' point of sale materials that were widely displayed in bookshops and libraries throughout the UK. However, after six years in teaching and twenty in publishing, Guy felt he was owed a mid-life crisis. Leaving HarperCollins in September 2000, he set about publishing newBOOKS.mag - a magazine for readers and reading groups - which has grown like topsy. And yet he seems to have had time on his hands, subsequently launching myBOOKS.mag for 3-7 year olds and staging a series of newBOOKS.mag Readers Days and Readers Weekends in 2002. He is a member of Wokingham Library Reading Group and, yes, he is the only man.
Leone Ross Leone Ross is a novelist, short story writer and lecturer in fiction writing. She was born in England and educated in Jamaica. Her first novel, All the Blood is Red was published by Angela Royal Publishing in 1996. It was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 1997. Her second critically acclaimed novel Orange Laughter is published in the UK by Anchor Press, in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Picador and in France by Actes Sud. In 2000 Leone was a recipient of a London Arts Board Writers Award. Recently she represented the British Council in Eastern Europe and Sweden. She is presently editing two collections of short stories and working on her third novel. She lectures in short story writing at the City Literary Institute in London and has been widely anthologised, most recently in Brown Sugar: a collection of Black Erotica, which debuted at number nine on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List and is presently number three. Prior to publication, Leone Ross worked as a journalist and editor for 14 years. She held the post of Arts Editor at The Voice newspaper, Female Section Editor at The New Nation newspaper, and was transitional Editor for Pride magazine. She also held the position of Deputy Editor at Sibyl, a feminist magazine. She has worked as a researcher at London Weekend Television and for the BBC.
Matthew Sweeney Matthew Sweeney was born in Donegal, Ireland in 1952. He moved to London in 1973 and studied at the Polytechnic of North London and the University of Freiburg. His poetry collections include A Dream of Maps (1981), A Round House (1983), Blue Shoes (1989), Cacti (1992) and The Bridal Suite (1997). His most recent collection of poetry is A Smell of Fish (2000). Selected Poems, representing the best of ten books and twenty years' work, is published in 2002. He won a Cholmondeley Award in 1987 and an Arts Council of England Writers' Award in 1999. He has also published poetry for children, including The Flying Spring Onion (1992) and Fatso in the Red Suit (1995). Matthew Sweeney has held residencies at the University of East Anglia, the South Bank Centre in London and is Poet in Residence at the National Library for the Blind as part of the 'Poetry Places' scheme run by the Poetry Society in London. |
