Tutor: Lydia Fulleylove

Lydia has a wide experience of facilitating workshops in the community with both new and experienced writers. She has worked in a range of settings, including schools, hospitals, prisons and local writing groups. She was Writer in Healthcare for the Healing Arts at St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight (2000 - 2006) and is currently Writer in Residence at HMP Albany.

Lydia recently received a Writer's Award by Arts Council England to work on her first poetry collection. She has published poetry, short stories, reviews and articles in magazines, newspapers and anthologies, including Mslexia, TES, The Guardian, and a range of literary magazines. She has also published creative writing and literacy materials for Nelson Thornes, David Fulton and for the Isle of Wight Education Directorate. She has a BA Honours in English, an MA in Education, a PGCE and a first class honours in Creative Writing.

Guide: Robin Ford

I started writing poetry at the absurdly advanced age of 56 – who says poetry is a young man's art? I think this was because I am bi-polar and I was put on a new regime of drugs which I am sure released my creative side. Since then my poems have appeared in a wide range of literary magazines and I have had a pamphlet sequence, 'After The Wound' and a full collection 'Never Quite Prepared For Light' published by Arrowhead Press. A second collection, 'On The Brink' will appear in January 2010 from Cinnamon Press.

Guide: Malcolm Taylor

I am under reconstruction at the moment.

Vidya Wolton

I originally trained as a scientist, graduating with a BSc(Hons) in Ecology in 1985. I then went on to teach at an Outdoor Education Centre on the Isle of Wight before returning to full-time education in 1990. I attended Portsmouth College of Art, Design and Further Education, where I completed a Foundation Year in Art and Design. My training continued at West Surrey College of Art and Design, where I specialised as a painter and have continued to practice, exhibiting on the Isle of Wight and in London. Works range from pure abstraction to themes from nature.

Joan Waddleton

A flitter-arse my neighbour calls me and she's right.  Too many interests - none of them followed through to any purpose.  Each day I get up determined to write and a dozen diversions crash through.  So I come here for ninety minutes each week for poetry to be forced onto centre stage.  I start the occasional poem but, longer term, I shy away from the commitment and the necessary exploration of the self that might turn my tumble of drafts into crafted poems and ultimately turn me into a poet.

Keith Wolton

(awaiting information)

Mark Mordey

Born, went to school, went to college, went to sea, worked in a shipping office, worked in London, worked in Rotterdam, sacked for drunkenness, lived with prostitute, thrown out of Holland, worked in pubs, trained as a psychiatric nurse, dried out with Alcoholics Anonymous, got married, got divorced, play guitar, play poetry, live on a boat, fell in love - that's it folks, I am an evangelical Christian.

Jaye Imrie

(awaiting information)

Ed Hinsley

(awaiting information)

Michele Busk

Michele Busk was born and brought up in Hampshire. She was educated at a convent and after a year in an American High School she trained and worked in Oxford for five years. She has worked abroad in Bulgaria, France and the Middle East as a secretary/translator. After a spell working in London she moved to the Isle of Wight to devote more time to writing and art. She began writing poetry at school – "Poems come out of the blue from dreams and experiences. My life is my inspiration" she says. She enjoys painting, sailing, skiing, music and theatre.