Biografisk notat

Biographies Isabel Ashdown lives and writes from the makeshift office of her Victorian home in West Sussex. She grew up in a provincial seaside village on the south coast of England, from which she now draws many of her creations, including her runner-up poem, 'Milk and Eggs'. The Bridport Prize is her first award for poetry. Having spent 15 years working for companies such as Virgin and The Body Shop, Isabel left her job in senior management to pursue her literary ambitions. She is now in the final year of a creative writing degree at Chichester University, which boasts a number of previous Bridport winners amongst its staff. Isabel shares her life with her carpenter husband and two young children. Zac Barker was born in 1978 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was ducated in France, England and US. She is unemployed. Jon Bauer stumbled across his passion for short fiction two years ago while working as an advertising copywriter - secretly tapping away at stories during the lulls in his workload (and some of the busy times). Now a full-time writer, he lives in Melbourne with his imaginary wife and children. Has published Sleepers Almanac 2007 (Australia and New Zealand). Katharine Braddick was born in Hertfordshire and grew up there and in Brussels. She was educated at the universities of Warwick and Cambridge. She now lives and works in London. Helen Carr was born in Swansea 1951 and read English at University of Leeds '69-'72. She was a teacher in Steiner Waldorf Schools for several inspiring years and now live in Carmarthenshire, where she teaches young adults with special needs in a Camphill community. 'I have written, intermittently, throughout my life. Over the past two years I have committed myself to writing regularly, and to sending my work out into the world to seek its fortune.' Andrew Craigs was born at the east end of Hadrian's Wall in 1964. Since then, he has lived and spent time in North Wales, Bristol, Exeter, Canada and Eastern Europe before returning to live on the north-east coast. Most people call him Alfie, short for Alphabet, as his initials are A B C. He graduated in Drama from the University of Bangor and has spent the last twenty years working as a writer and director in theatre of various stripes. He has also worked as a lecturer in theatre devising and theatre history for numerous colleges in the South West. 'I have always written and collected stories and am currently working on a collection of interconnected short stories about sheets and a novel about washing.' Elizabeth Dalton was born in New York City, but has lived in many parts of the United States, and also in France. She got a B.A., Honors in English, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of California at Berkeley, and then studied in France on a Fulbright Scholarship. She returned to the U. S. and got a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. Until a few years ago she taught literature and creative writing in the English Department at Barnard College, the women's college affiliated with Columbia. She has had fiction and criticism in The New Yorker, Partisan Review and other publications. Unconscious Structure in The Idiot", a psychoanalytic study of the Dostoevsky novel, was published by Princeton University Press. 'I now live in Manhattan. My 27-year-old son, Matthew, who is a journalist, lives in Brooklyn. Now that I am no longer teaching, I want to devote my time to writing, especially - with the encouragement of the Bridport Prize - to writing fiction.' Claudia Daventry was born in London and read a lot of English books while she was supposed to be studying French and Spanish. After being at the same distinguished Oxford college as W.H. Auden (though not at the same time) and getting the same undistinguished degree result, it should have been clear that poetry was the way forward. However, she ignored these signs for far too long and worked instead as a copywriter, extra in a kung-fu movie, production-line worker and singer in a Catalan blues band. At the moment she lives in Amsterdam, where she writes, teaches, translates, runs after her children and performs her poetry. Her work has appeared in the Amsterdam-based Versal International Literary Magazine. In the UK her writing has also appeared in the Independent and Scotsman. Sarah Davies was born in New Brighton, Wirral 'the greatest seaside resort of the future that never was'. From this she gained her love of the British seaside, the sea and fairgrounds. 'I started writing when I was about 6 - my first poem was recited proudly in front of my grandparents and featured a velvet-pawed tiger who tortured a rabbit and killed a hare - cheery stuff! I was always in love with the power of words.' She went on to study English at Edinburgh University, then Communications at London College of Printing and ended up working in Multimedia and Learning design. In her 20s she stopped writing, but started again a few years ago and now it is an important part of her life. She lives in Bedford with her long-term partner Roy and baby daughter Jenny Miranda. She now finds editing as much as she'd like 'pretty difficult, though my goal in the next year is to hone and submit as much as I can for publication'. 'Snakeskin' was published by Stride. Jonathan Hadwen lives in Brisbane, Australia. Dividing his time between attending art classes, working as a web-developer for a university, and writing, Jon's life is devoted to his family, his girlfriend and their little black dog. A poem will be published in the 2006 anthology of entries into the Henry Kendall Poetry Award. Mischa Hiller grew up in Durham, London, Beirut, Dar El-Salaam and Brighton. He has written one novel based on his Beirut experiences and is completing a second, a thriller. He has also adapted his first novel into a screenplay. He has written only one short story, but now plans to write more. Most of the time he is a self-employed IT consultant so that he can pay the mortgage, play poker with his friends, and keep his boys in trainers. He lives in Cambridge with his family and a slightly whiffy dog. Greg Hrbek is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. His first novel, The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly, has been published in the US, France, and Norway. His short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Harper's ('Green World', December 1999), Salmagundi ('Frannycam.net/diary', Winter/Spring 2004) and the Idaho Review ( 'Summer of the Lawn Moths' Vol. VII, 2006). He lives with his wife and son in the Northern Mariana Islands, and teaches part of the year at Skidmore College in Upstate New York. Christopher James has won the Ledbury and Bridport Poetry Prizes and in 2002 was a recipient of an Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors. His first collection, The Invention of Butterfly was launched this year and is available from www.raggedraven.co.uk 'James' ability to develop an original idea, character or place is remarkable, and he writes on the sure foundation of a genuine talent,' wrote Will Daunt in Envoi 144. New poems have also appeared in Smiths Knoll, Poetry Nottingham and The Rialto. Cynthia Kitchen is married with one son and has been writing and having poetry published since the 1980s. She is a primary school teacher by profession but now semi-retired and draws her inspiration from Morecambe Bay, Cumbria. She has been published in a range of magazines, and has been a prize-winner and runner-up in various competition anthologies including Manchester, Chester, Lancaster, Ver Poets Open Competition and Staple Anthology. She has been featured on BBC Radio Merseyside and her first collection is due from Headland Publications in 2007. Elizabeth Koch graduated from Princeton in 1999 and received her MFA in creative writing from The New School in New York City in 2004, thesis pending. Since moving to New York in the fall of '99, she has worked as an assistant editor for Elle magazine, an editor/writer for digitalcity.com, a researcher/writer for John Stossel and other news journalists, and has published fiction, non-fiction, and humour pieces in a variety of publications. In 2004 she covered the Martha Steward trial for Reason magazine, and for the last two years has worked as a freelance editor for novelists, short fiction writers, and non-fiction authors, including John Stossel. She is currently working on a collection of short fiction, and is the Executive Editor of a literary humour publication called Opium. She has been published in The New York Observer, the Chicago Sun-Times, Elle Magazine, Reason Magazine, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, Yankee Potroast, the Columbia Journalism Review, Hobart, Small Spiral Notebook online, and Orchid Lit magazine. She lives in San Francisco. Richard Lambert was born in London in 1971 and has lived in Bristol for 12 years. He completed his second novel this summer and wants to find a literary agent. A poem was published in the anthology The Poetry Cure published by Bloodaxe in 2005, and poems in magazines, including Poetry Review, The Rialto, and The Shop'. A short story was published in the magazine Tears in the Fence in 2005. He is currently working on his third novel. Shaun Levin's collection of short stories, A Year of Two Summers, was published in 2005. A novella, Seven Sweet Things, was published in 2003. His short stories appear in anthologies as diverse as Modern South African Stories, Does the Sun Rise Over Dagenham, Gay Times Book of Short Stories, and The Slow Mirror: New Fiction by Jewish Writers. He has been writer-in-residence in a school, theatre, bookshop, and on the island of Tasmania. He is the editor of Chroma: A Queer Literary Journal. Devon McC Jackson was born in Nashville, USA. 'I was more or less raised in the Southwest (Albuquerque), went to college in the East (Columbia University). I have an MFA in fiction from The New School (class of 1998). I'm a freelance writer and have written for The New York Times, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair and Outside magazine, among other newspapers and magazines.' He has had short stories published in The Mississippi Review and The Chicago Review, and has a poem coming out soon in Nimrod. Annie McDowall is forty nine. She lives in south London with her partner, two cats, 'and a garden full of loose-bowelled foxes'. She wrote her first novella at the age of eight. The Adventures of Bolomokey Island has yet to be published. Creative writing became overshadowed by the constraints of university dissertations and business writing. Julia Cameron's The Artist s Way, a workshop with V G Lee in York, and evening classes with Leone Ross at the City Lit in London sparked Annie's imagination, and now writing is an important part of her life. Her short story 'Going, Going ...' was published on the PitWit website in 2006. Annie is chief executive of a voluntary organisation in south London. John Okrent was born and raised in Worthington, MA, and then raised some more in New York, NY. Now I live in Brooklyn and work as a caregiver at a daycare centre in Manhattan. I am in the process of applying to medical school. His entry in the Bridport competition was his first attempt to publish his work. Gerry Ryan is a graduate of Bath Spa University College with a first class honours degree in English and Creative Writing. She has been Writer in Residence at HMP Rye Hill since October 2005 and Creative Writing tutor for the Open College of Arts. A first novel nears completion. 'I spend most of my time writing in a caravan in the middle of nowhere.' Anthony Snider, a native of North Carolina, lives in Wilmington, NC, where he works for the NC Coastal Reserve managing research reserves on barrier islands. He completed his MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College in July 2006. He formerly held a faculty position teaching environmental policy at the University of Minnesota which he left to focus on poetry. He is currently putting the finishing touches to his first book-length collection of poems. He spends his spare time kayaking in salt marshes. Kerry Swash, since graduating from London College of Communications with an MA in Screenwriting, has had interest in two of her feature scripts. Hoping to find more time to write she recently moved to SW France where she is involved in setting up a rural studio and workshop space designed to encourage opportunity and interest in les beaux arts. Joel M. Toledo is a faculty member at the English Department of Miriam College in Quezon City, Philippines. Among a number of awards, he won first prize for the Poetry in English category of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 2005 for his collection, What Little I Know of Luminosity and came second in the same category in 2004 for the collection, Literature and Other Poems. His poems have appeared in various local publications in the Philippines. He graduated with a Masters Degree in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines, where he also took up B.A. English (Creative Writing) and B.A. Communication (Journalism). He plays the drums for the local rock band, Los Chupacabras. He is 34 years old and living in Quezon City, Philippines with his wife April and children Red and Moira. He has a published novelette for young adults entitled, Pedro and the Lifeforce (Giraffe Books, 1997). Janet Ward has been writing poems since seventh grade, when the Beats swept her off her feet and she saw the light of language for the first time. She went on to study with Ron Koertge, Stephen Ratcliffe and Chana Bloch. Frank O Hara, e.e.cummings, the city of New York, John Donne, jazz, Emily Dickinson, and Samuel Beckett continue to influence her work. In 2002, she entered a competition for the first time. Of over 6,000 entries, she was one of three winners and subsequently appeared at an event held at Symphony Space in New York City, where she read her poem and shared the stage with Gerald Stern, Sharon Olds, Paul Muldoon and Nikki Giovanni, who personally selected her poem, 'change', as the adult winner of the 10th Anniversary Poetry-In-Motion Contest, co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of America and the MTA. In 2003, 'change' appeared on New York City buses and subways. She continues to give readings in New York City, where she works as an actress and a secretary. Her poem, 'nonetogram', appears in the liner notes of the Alan Ferber Nonet jazz album, Scenes From An Exit Row, released in June 2005 on Fresh Sound Records. Deborah Willis grew up in Calgary, Alberta, and moved to British Columbia to study at the University of Victoria. She recently completed a degree in literature and currently works as a bookseller in Victoria, Canada's almost-British city. She has published fiction in the Canadian literary journals Event Magazine and Grain Magazine and her story 'Vanishing' won this year's fiction contest in Prism International.