Kingston University London

Real Lives as a Basis for Fiction

Professor of English and Creative Writing at St Andrew’s University, Susan Sellers has turned her fascination with Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf into a novel: Vanessa and Virginia. In conversation with literary agent Jenny Brown, she will describe this process and the responsibilities involved in writing about real people in this way. Chaired by Alison Baverstock.

Susan Sellers

After a nomadic childhood, Susan Sellers ran away to Paris. Renting a chambre de bonne, she worked as a barmaid, tour-guide and nanny, bluffed her way as a software translator and co-wrote a film script with a Hollywood screenwriter. She became closely involved with leading French feminist writers and translated Hélène Cixous. From Paris she travelled to Swaziland, teaching English to tribal grandmothers, and to Peru, where she worked for a women’s aid agency.

She is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of St Andrews. In 2002 she won the Canongate Prize for Short Story Writing and in 2007 received a New Writing Partnership Arts Council Award for Vanessa and Virginia.

Jenny Brown

Jenny Brown founded the Edinburgh-based literary agency Jenny Brown Associates in 2002. With her colleagues she now represents over 100 writers of literary fiction, non-fiction and children’s writing. Jenny was formerly the first Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival (1983-1991), presenter of book programmes for Scottish Television, and Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council. She is currently a committee member of the Association of Authors’ Agents, and a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

www.jennybrownassociates.com

Alison Baverstock

A publisher, who began to write about publishing and now, in addition to writing, teaches Creative Writing, Marketing and Publishing at Kingston University. Her particular speciality is writing about how to write and get published, and Is there a book in you? and Marketing your book, an author’s guide have sold very well. She also writes about balancing work life and family, and is the co-author, with educator Gill Hines, of the bestselling Whatever! A down to earth guide to parenting teenagers.

She is regularly interviewed in the media about writing, publishing and parenting and has appeared on Richard and Judy, BBC Breakfast,Woman’s Hour and Bookshelf.

She lives in Kingston with her husband and they have four teenage children.

www.alisonbaverstock.com