Meet Our Tutors and Workshop Leaders

The folk who will help you be the best writer you can be.

Esther Chilton

Esther has a social science degree specialising in psychology and sociology. Writing was always a passion and since joining The Writers Bureau as a student many years ago, Esther hasn’t looked back. She now writes and tutors full-time. Esther has written for numerous writing magazines and had articles published in a broad range of publications including Prima, Your Cat, Lifeinfo and Collect It! to name a few. She has many short story competition wins to her credit and has also enjoyed judging competitions including Writer’s Forum’s monthly competition. Her fiction stories have appeared in The People’s Friend, My Weekly, Your Cat and Independent Newspapers, as well as teenage and children’s publications

Andy Ellis

Married in 1981 to Pat: Two sons - Craig and Liam. Obtained a degree in journalism in 1986, starting working with a local local newspaper in the same year. Progressed to a regional newspaper and later, worked for a variety of magazines, based in London.

Around 1991 decided to try life as a freelance writer. Have written thousands of magazine and newspaper articles; my work is managed by two different agencies; one in the USA and one based in Sweden, for mainland Europe. Main focus now is Business writing, especially for charities, where I help them with their policies and procedures, strategies, annual reports, press releases and with writing tenders for contracts. Leisure: My allotment - my escape from the hustle and bustle of life.

Stephanie Baudet

Stephanie was born in England but grew up in Australia and New Zealand. She returned to the UK after qualifying as a nurse, got married, and stayed. She is the author of over 80 books for children, the most recent being several series for Sweet Cherry Publishing including Mr Pattacake (10 book set), The Dinosaur Detectives (6 book set), Sherlock Holmes for Children (3 x 10 book sets) and The Bronte Books retold for children (8 book set). Stephanie has been a tutor with The Writers Bureau for twenty years. She lives in Buckinghamshire next door to her daughter and family.

www.stephaniebaudet.com

Tony Kirwood

Tony writes fiction, articles and comedy sketches. Much of his work is humorous although sometimes it's scary. Sometimes it's both. His non-scary book How To Write Comedy was cited by the Stage Newspaper as the best training book of the year. He’s had stories in the fantasy genre published and read out. His column The Blog of Samuel Pepys appeared regularly in The Greenwich Visitor paper.

Tony teaches creative writing, comedy writing, comedy appreciation and drama in colleges and venues across the country. He tutors regular classes at Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College in South London. He has also led workshops at literary festivals and similar events.

Linda Lewis

Linda Lewis (aka Catherine Howard) lives in Exeter. Like many other writers, Linda started her career by studying with the Writers Bureau. She has been selling stories to women’s magazines for twenty years and makes her living from writing. To date, she has sold more than a thousand stories and aims to sell at least one every week. Her main markets these days are Take a Break’s Fiction Feast, Woman’s Weekly and The People’s Friend. She has also sold children’s stories to Ireland’s Own.

Sara Mace

Sara Mace has been a journalist since 1972, starting as a reporter and working her way through the ranks to editor. She has worked on a number of publications, mainly newspapers, one of which she produced alone from home during lockdown. She has been a Writers Bureau tutor since 1993 and teaches journalism, non-fiction writing, and proofreading and copy editing.

Mandy Pannett

Mandy Pannett works freelance as a creative writing tutor. She is the author of six poetry collections and two novellas. She is a book reviewer for several publications and for five years was an editor for Sentinel Literary Quarterly. She has acted as an adjudicator for national competitions and won prizes and been placed herself in several others.

Mandy is currently working on a music/poetry/ film collaboration which will be performed at various venues later in the year.

Carol Anne Strange

Carol Anne Strange accepted her first writing commission over 35 years ago. Since then, she’s delivered millions of good words for magazines, publishers, change-makers, businesses and, ultimately, readers in the UK and beyond.

Carol’s features and stories have been published in magazines such as Breathe, Coast, Lancashire Life, Teen Breathe, Sussex Life and Best to name a few. She is also a published author of novels (Light Weaver), books, small press collections and inspiring courses.

With an MA in Professional Writing and years of experience in the publishing and creative industries, she loves supporting writers on their writing journey.

https://carolannestrange.com

Phil Busby

A playwright, singer-songwriter and author, Phil works in course development for The Writers Bureau, Manchester. Originally a psychiatric nurse, he studied Theatre at Dartington College of Arts before working across Europe for ten years as a performer, writer and workshop leader. Phil is a co-founder of Budding Writers.