Wordplay Press: The Authors

About the authors

Mandy Coe's poetry has won a number of awards and has been featured on BBC radio and television. A poem from each of her collections, Pinning the Tail on the Donkey (Spike 2001) and The Weight of Cows (Shoestring Press 2004) is included in Forward Books of Poetry. Her poetry for children is anthologised by Bloomsbury, Oxford University Press, Hodder Wayland and Pearson Education. She received a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2005.

Mandy facilitates poetry projects for adults and young people on behalf of Liverpool Tate, the Festival Hall and the Barbican. She works as a consultant and trainer for organisations such as Muse, the Poetry Society's Poetryclass, Literaturetraining and the Children's Poetry Bookshelf. To visit Mandy's website click here.

Jean Sprackland is the author of three books of poetry and a collection of short stories. Tattoos for Mothers Day was shortlisted for the Forward Prize 1999. Hard Water was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for both the T S Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award 2004. Tilt is published by Cape in October 2007.

Jean is currently Education Manager with the Poetry Archive, the world's premier online collection of poets reading their own work. For the Poetry Society she set up and managed poetryclass, a national initiative to train, resource and support teachers.

Jean tutors residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation, and in 2002 was a judge for the Young Poets of the Year Awards. She has written on poetry and education for publications including Writing magazine and the Times Educational Supplement. To visit Jean's website click here.