Our Writers

Chris Bush's award winning TONY! The Blair Musical is on now at The Pleasance Islington, go to the White Rose Theatre Company for details or Pleasance to book.

Stickpin has been described as "folk grunge" and "quirky", among other things, but in her own words, their "exceptionally talented singer/guitarist" and Squad writer, Katherine Horrex, just describes them as "fookin' brill maaate, know wor I mean?" Influences include Kirsty MacColl, Husker Du and Sonic Youth. You can hear her and buy the demo at www.myspace.com/stickpin

Arts Council England made two awards to Squad graduates, Penny Broadhurst has been awarded five thousand pounds to "buy me time to write new material, and a tasty iMac with audio interface, software and mics. This is so I can make demos, design artwork, improve my podcast and continue my domination of the internet." Her latest EP is out now, go to www.pennybroadhurst.com Wes Brown has been awarded five thousand pounds to set up an online magazine The Cadaverine, Wes says "our imperative is to bring emerging authors together with a new readership. Young writers from Yorkshire, writing for young readers worldwide. Giving a rare chance for a generation of young writers to read their contemporaries. Given the ammount of people on writing courses, it's bizarre there's so little work out there." You can get a sneak preview at The Cadaverine

The Squad enabled Wes Brown to learn editorial skills with the publisher route, by working on their collection of 10,000 word stories, to complement an editorial work placement at Penguin Books, you can visit Wes at thewesbrown.com. Wes and Amy Creswell were selected to appear in route's byte back Bloom and their Compendium

Two of the current Squad Ellen Osborne and Sumeia Ali have had stories in Light Transports a project distributing free books on mainline stations in Yorkshire, and Ellen's short story He Said is a competition winner at normblog along side fellow Squad Members Laura Attridge and her story Angela, and Unwell by Katherine Horrex, Katherine also has a poem in Zygote in My Coffee. Amy Christmas has had her story My Favourite Word is Clarity published in Aesthetica 15.

Charlotte Wetton has been highly commended in the Voice poetry competition, connected to the Dartington Literary festival and judged by Jo Shapcott.

The Squad financially supported Nick Payne and Chris Bush to take their plays to Edinburgh last summer, Nick's CILD ran at C Central and Chris's Man and God at Smirnoff Baby Belly. Nick's play 'Flourless' was performed as a rehearsed reading at Soho Theatre in March 2006 and he is now on the MA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at Central School of Speech and Drama.

After using her latest radio play as a calling card, Jessica Brown was offered the opportunity of working as a trialist storyliner by Emmerdale. She is now a Researcher for the BBC working on adaptations for Women's Hour.

Tom Donelly is currently working with the Oxford Research Group, an organisation that 'works to promote a more sustainable approach to security for the UK and the world'. They are increasingly making important contributions to international debate about critical issues like the nuclear arms build up. He does 'lots of proofing, reviewing and editing'.

Here are some links to sites and published work by grads from Squads 1 & 2.

Penny Broadhurst has been with us since 2001, she continues to take part in workshops and events and we have even had her back to tutor the latest cohort. She was recently played on Huw Stephen's Radio 1 show Introducing. Catch her live if you can, buy her CD developed with assistance from the Squad, and visit her at www.pennybroadhurst.com

Joe Shrewsbury was also one of the key members of our first Squad programme. We're still in touch, but don't see him as much as we like now he's a rock star, read the blog, listen to the music and buy the t-shirt at www.65daysofstatic.com, you can read The Guardian review of their latest The Destruction of Small Ideas here.

Gavin Hudson, a member of out first Squad, is an excellent poet recently published by the Oxford magazine Fire, and you can read his reviews in Round Table Review, and soon in PN Review. Visit Gavin's site at www.gavinhudson.com