Inspira Group Authors
Michael G. R. Tolkien
is a retired lecturer and workshop organiser. Michael has published various poetry collections and his verse and reviews have appeared in many magazines including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi and Poetry Nottingham. Michael’s recent collection entitled No Time for Roses was published by Poetry Salzburg, and his children’s stories WISH and RAINBOW were published by Thames River Press in December 2012 and are also available as audio books, with the former being narrated by Gerald Dickens.
Simon Brown
is a member of the Feng Shui Society, the Macrobiotic Association and the Zen Shiatsu Society. A world-recognized expert in Macrobiotics, Simon has written numerous books including the novels The Healer and Death of a Butterfly and popular non-fiction books Macrobiotics For Life, Feng Shui Life Coach, Practical Wabi Sabi, The Feng Shui Bible, Practical Feng Shui, The Practical Art of Face Reading, The Chi Energy Workbook, Modern-Day Macrobiotics, Practical Astrology by Numbers, Practical Wabi Sabi, The Secrets of Face Reading and The Energy Booster Workout.
Mark Leigh
has co-published over 40 humour and trivia books with three UK best-sellers. His books include How to Be a Superhero (Penguin), The Book of Stupid Lists (Virgin Books), The Lovers’ Revenge Kit (Virgin Books) and Foul-Mouthed Pets (Summersdale). Mark has written books with Rolf Harris, Chris Tarrant, Des Lynam, Pamela Stephenson and Jeremy Beadle. He has also written segments for The Baftas and Noel’s House Party, and sketches for Hale and Pace, Russ Abbott, Brian Conley and many others.
Christine Fenge
was brought up in Zambia, and came to England and married before returning to Africa, with her family, to teach in Zimbabwe and Kenya. However, political unrest affected them and they settled permanently in England in 1991. Since then, Chris taught English to boys and girls up to the age of 18 years. The Salamander Stone is her first full-length fantasy novel (Champagne Books/Burst Books).
Peter Hall
retired in 1993 to write, paint and travel, following a career in marketing with Unilever and sales with Allied Domecq. Peter has held one-man exhibitions and sold work in Australia and the UK. He continues to paint commissions. His first novel, Guardians of the Jesus Gene, is being published by Thames River Press in the Autumn of 2013, followed by its sequel in 2014.
Bernadette Russell
is a writer/performer/comedian. She founded arts organisation White Rabbit with Gareth Brierley, and has created multi-media theatre shows and literary events for many venues including National Theatre, Soho Theatre, Thames Festival, the Freud Museum, Wandsworth Festival, Jackson’s Lane Theatre and Arts Admin. Her on-going project 366 Days Of Kindness, a response to the 2011 UK riots, has been the subject of a documentary and is a theatre show and interactive exhibition. The show is touring nationally beginning in London’s Southbank Centre July 2013. Bernadette’s first children’s book project will be published by The Ivy Press in 2014.
Richard Woolley
has been a film director, performer, musician, author (novelist and screenwriter) and academic. Films included: Telling Tales (1980), Brothers and Sisters (1981) and Girl from the South (1988). He has been Director of the Dutch Film Academy, founding Dean of Film and TV at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and inaugural holder of the Greg Dyke Chair of Film & Television at the University of York. His novel Sekabo will be published in Spring 2014. More information can be found at www.richardwoolley.com.
Ralph Alcock
has held academic posts in Scotland, Ireland, Australia and the United States. Ralph was a researcher at Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Professor of Agricultural Engineering at South Dakota State University. He was principal of a land-based college in the UK, and now consults on tertiary education and sustainable development. Ralph’s novel Hidden Identity was published in 2010 and his second novel The Loving Son was published in November 2011.
Caroline Mabey
is a published author/illustrator of children’s books. Her Bertie and Rufus series of young children’s stories will be published by Thames River Press in 2013. In the past, Caroline has exhibited and sold wildlife pictures alongside David Shepherd, and has supplied illustrations for the BBC, along with a series of cartoons in the Chelsea FC monthly magazine.
Fergus O'Connell
is an world-recognized authority on project management, having published a dozen management books, including two best-sellers How To Run Successful Projects – The Silver Bullet (2001) and Simply Brilliant – The Competitive Advantage of Common Sense (2004). His works include Work Less, Achieve More: Great Ideas to Get Your Life Back (Headline, 2009), Earn More, Stress Less and What You Need to Know About Project Management (Wiley/Capstone, 2010) and The Power of Doing Less in August 2013 (Wiley Publishing). Fergus also has two novels coming out with Thames River Press entitled Moonlight (Fall 2013) and Candlelight (Spring 2014).
Alan Keen
trained and taught with the BCKA Kickboxing Organisation, and now retired, he has turned his hand to writing exciting animal adventure stories for children based in the Northumberland forests. Alan received a literary prize for his series of Averon stories The Tales of Averon Triology: The Dawn of the Great War which was published in April 2012, and his next book entitled Haunted will be published by Champagne Books’s Burst imprint in 2013.
Joanna Joslin
lives in North Yorkshire and has been teaching for over 30 years. Joanna won a Radio Leeds Short Story Competition and in her first book A Conflict of Class, she immerses herself in the diversity of the characters, the specific decades and accompanying descriptions of everything associated with the social history of the period. Her next novel entitled Deep Within a Woman’s Heart will be published in Spring 2014.
Mike Uden
started work as a runner in a Soho post-production company and progressed up the career ladder, working on such seminal films as Yellow Submarine and Performance. After forming his own company and overseeing proceedings for over ten years, he decided to change direction and teach English as a foreign language. Recently, he has put his hand to writing novels and published The Sacrifice with Robert Hale in 2013 and his next book entitled Chemical Attraction will be published by Thames River Press in Spring 2014.h
Malcolm Kohll
has worked as a freelance writer and producer since 1978. His first commissioned work was for the BBC sci-fi series DR WHO. His first feature film as writer and co-producer was The Fourth Reich and he has since produced The 51st State and The Bone Snatcher and developed other scripts for Focus Films. His first full-length novel entitled Good Hope will be published in Spring 2014.
John Kitchen
is a retired schoolteacher. As a teacher he wrote plays, pantomimes and musicals for the children at his school. John has also reviewed books for Blackwells and Thimble Press. John won two literary prizes for his debut children’s story Nicola’s Ghost and his second novel, a supernatural mystery for teenagers called A Spectre in the Stones was published by Thames River Press (2013). John often makes free visits to schools to lead writing and reading workshops.