Who Tutors LSJ Courses?

The LSJ only uses experienced professionals who work within the areas that they teach.  We have listed those who are established members of our teaching team, either as lecturers on specific topics or as personal tutors:

Ken Ashton is a journalist who has won awards for investigative news and feature reporting. He has worked on weekly, evening and national newspapers, and much of his work has been in sports journalism - he has covered top-class soccer around the UK and Europe and wrote a book on the first 10 years of the legendary Bill Shankly as Liverpool manager.
As a young writer he covered the 1966 World Cup Final when England beat Germany at Wembley. Born in Lancashire, he worked mainly in Liverpool and Manchester and has extensive knowledge of editing as well as writing, having been editor of two weekly newspapers and group production editor with a series.
His wife, Diane, is a journalist and his daughter Rachael was, three years ago, made editor of a local paper at the age of 26. Journalism runs in the family! Ken has been involved in various areas of journalism teaching for the past 15 years.

David Banks is a full time freelance cartoonist whose work is syndicated world-wide and has been published in, amongst others, The Times, The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Dandy and the Internet. He also supplies cartoons for the greeting card and advertising markets. He was short-listed in the Sunday Times and New Scientist cartoon competitions, is the cartoon tutor for the London school of journalism and is a member of the Cartoonist Club of Great Britain.
He lives in Colchester with his wife and two daughters. His hobbies include bull-baiting, paragliding and flower arranging and his favourite soft drink is lager. His ambition is to become a radio cartoonist.

Nick Barlay is the author of three highly acclaimed novels, Curvy Lovebox, Crumple Zone and Hooky Gear, and was recently named as a strong contender for Granta's twenty best young British novelists of the last ten years. He is a freelance journalist, and has contributed feature articles to newspapers and magazines, including Time Out, the Guardian, and English Heritage. He has written for consumer and trade magazines, local papers and has also worked as a sub-editor. The son of Hungarian refugees, he has worked with Hungarian television, making documentaries. Other work includes award-winning radio plays, contributing a walk to the Time Out Book of London Walks, and short stories for forthcoming anthologies by Picador and X Press. He has also taught journalism and creative writing at the University of London as well as the London School of Journalism and has participated in British Council literary tours.

Jane Bidder has been a journalist for the past twenty five years and has contributed to  most national newspapers and magazines. She has also written several non-fiction books on subjects ranging from parenting to animals. In addition, Jane has written two series of children's books including Family Memories, published by Franklin Watts. Under her pen name Sophie King, she writes short stories and novels. Her previous novels include THE SCHOOL RUN, MUMS@HOME and SECOND TIME LUCKY. All three are published by Hodder & Stoughton. Jane has won several fiction prizes including the Elizabeth Goudge Award and the Theodora Roscoe Cup presented by the Society of Women Writers. She also teaches creative writing.

Ross Biddiscombe has experience of working in almost every area of the media, particularly in print - including national newspapers, monthly magazines, daily and weekly regional papers, specialist magazines and trade journals - but also in radio and television. Ross has previously been the director of PR and communications at two pan-European TV channels, National Geographic and Screensport; is the author of six books on topics such as American football, sports sponsorship and sports tourism; and is a marketing consultant to various sports-based firms, including internet websites and publishing companies. Currently, Ross is a freelance writer for TV and sports trade and consumer magazines as well as author of further business-to-business books.

Peter Carty is a very experienced editor and feature writer. He has contributed to a wide range of magazines and newspapers including The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph, GQ and Esquire. He researched and wrote a regular slot for The Guardian for four years and was travel editor for Time Out, also for four years, as well as writing numerous features for both of these publications. The early part of his career was spent in financial journalism, when he wrote for the Financial Times and the Investors Chronicle.

Jane Cassidy started out as a regional newspaper reporter after completing a postgraduate journalism course in 1987. She then worked in news, features and assistant editor roles on a medical trade title and a national current affairs magazine before going freelance in 1999. Jane writes features for a range of national newspapers and magazines, and has also helped produce several TV current affairs documentaries. A love of travel has led her to take part in international assignments all over the world. She is a visiting university lecturer teaching journalism in the UK and has trained media students and journalists in Spain.

Angela Catto, born in South Africa, has been teaching shorthand for fifteen years. She teaches shorthand for various journalism courses around London, and provides LSJ students the opportunity to become confident users of Teeline.

Chris Dukes originally trained as a teacher of English, but has worked in the office environment for most of her life.  Several years ago she was short listed twice for the now defunct Fidler Award for best unpublished children’s book.  She has had several genre novels and a book on recruitment published, and has a mainstream novel in the hands of an agent.  She assesses novels for an agency which offers critiques on unpublished works.  She has been tutoring with the London School for several years and really enjoys helping others to avoid the pitfalls which beset the new fiction-writer.  Recently she gave up full time work to travel New Zealand in a 1956 school bus conversion for a year.  Now back in UK she lives in beautiful Exmoor and is writing the book about her experiences.  Her hobbies include caving, paragliding, and playing Irish session folk music on a wooden flute.

Gavin Evans is currently a sports correspondent for BBC World Service, reviews books for BBC Radio 5 and features regularly on Radio 4. He currently writes for The Times, The Observer Magazine, Esquire, Men's Health, The Express and many other publications. Gavin is author of five books, the most recent of which, Mama's Boy, was published in October 2004. He holds a PhD in Political Science and a degree in Law.

Paul Gogarty writes travel journalism for the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Sunday Times, Times, Daily Express and is travel editor for Cosmopolitan. For three years he was a regular presenter on BBC 1's Holiday programme and is also an author.  His latest travelogue, The Coast Road - 3000 miles round the edge of England, was nominated for the Guild of Travel Writers 2005 Travel Narrative of the Year. Paul was presented with an award for the Best TV Travel Show for his 12-part series Coastal Inspirations by the UK Guild of Travel Awards in November 2006. Currently mixing his travel journalism with writing books, giving lectures, doing travel consultancy work and running the travel journalism course at the LSJ. He is married with two children and lives in Muswell Hill.

Dominic Hyland was educated at St John's College, Cambridge and at the Universities of London, Manchester, and Lancaster. He has been a tutor with LSJ specialising in Journalism and the Short Story Course for over twenty years. His major writing interests have been in the world of education and he is the author of fourteen books in areas related to it. He is currently working on a history of education in twentieth century England. His leisure pursuits include his life-long support of Liverpool Football Club and his membership of a choral society.

Margaret James is a novelist and journalist who has written thirteen published novels and is a regular contributor to the UK's bestselling monthly publication for authors, Writing Magazine. Margaret's latest novels are a trilogy of stories set in Dorset - The Morning Promise, The Long Way Home and The Penny Bangle, which will be published in October 2007.

Andrew Knight began his journalism career in Scotland on the Aberdeen Evening Express, where he won a number of writing awards, including Young Scottish Journalist of the Year, and later became the paper's features editor. He moved to BBC Scotland in Glasgow in 1989, but returned to print journalism in the early 1990s and spent five years as assistant editor of The Bath Chronicle, principally responsible for the paper's features and entertainments coverage.  He has had widespread freelance writing experience and been heavily involved in journalism training for the past 10 years with a variety of newspaper groups. He held a full-time post as editorial training manager for Trinity Mirror's Western Mail & Echo newspapers in Cardiff  for two years prior to becoming a full-time freelance tutor and lecturer.

Ian Mackean has been a tutor with the LSJ for 18 years. He holds an honours degree in English Literature, and qualifications in librarianship, and online tutoring. He has had short stories published in literary magazines.

Terry McMahon completed an NCTJ pre-entry course and started work in North Wales. Terry moved on to subediting in Chester before returning to his native Liverpool, where he worked as a freelance with a press agency. This included work for national dailies as well as regional BBC TV and Radio work. He spent some years working solely in radio before joining TV-am as a TV reporter, working across the country and overseas.  The next three years were spent working on Radio Shropshire and Radio Merseyside before returning to freelancing and work at Granada Television in Liverpool and Manchester. Terry has eported on such major events as the Hillsborough tragedy, Lockerbie, The China Crisis and the Kegworth plane crash. Sports events covered include Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers games in print and broadcasting as well as the Grand National at Aintree.

Julia Moffatt is a freelance editor and writer. She has been working in publishing for eighteen years and in children's publishing for sixteen. From 1990-1998 she worked at Scholastic where she ran the highly successful Point list and published the acclaimed Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price which won the 1998 Guardian Fiction award. A mother of four, she combines her freelance life with the school run. Julia has recently written a lighthearted book about marathon training, Running on Empty: Diary of a Marathon Mum and is currently in the middle of an adult romantic novel. She also has a blog at maniacmum.blogspot.com

Sue Moorcroft is a working writer. She’s sold over one hundred short stories to magazines around the world and is just beginning her third serial for the home market. Her novel, Uphill all the Way was published in paperback in April 2005, and has gone to large print and audio. Her new novel, Family Matters, will be published in 2008. She is a committee-member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, a past winner of the Association’s Katie Fforde Bursary Award, a reader for the RNA’s New Writer’s Scheme and an appraiser for Critically Write. As well as being a tutor of distance learning courses, Sue is a part-time tutor for the University of Leicester, Northampton Centre, Leicester Writing School and other institutions on an occasional basis.

Kenneth Morgan OBE was Director of The Press Council and its successor, the Press Complaints Commission, for twelve years. Earlier he was General Secretary of the NUJ. A journalist for over 50 years, he worked on newspapers and newsagencies in the north of England, Manchester, London and Cairo. Ken was a trustee of Reuters for fifteen years, a former Governor and Honorary Secretary of the English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth, and is an associate Press Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. A consultant to the Thomson Foundation, he has advised governments and ress councils in Fiji, Ghana, Mauritius, Sierra Leone and former Yugoslavia on press legislation, regulation, codes of conduct and ethics.

Paul Nathanson is a veteran Fleet Street jounalist who was media editor on Campaign, England's equivalent to America's Ad Age. For 8 years he was showbiz and media correspondent at The Mail on Sunday. Since leaving the Mail on Sunday, Paul has been writing for The Times, Financial Times, Evening Standard and Express weekend magazines. Paul also worked in Public Relations as a senior consultant at Lowe Bell Communications (now Bell Pottinger Communications). He is still active in public relations, working on corporate and consumer accounts.

Tony Padman has been a freelance news and features journalist for eight years. He writes for The Evening Standard, Archant Regional Newspapers, The Universe and The Polish Daily. His experience includes writing hard and soft news stories, celebrity interviews, feature writing, working with press officers and PR agencies. He now specialises in show business journalism.

Colin Parkes was a national radio journalist for more than 30 years.  He trained on the Evening Post in Reading, and went on to the BBC as a local radio reporter.  In 1973 he moved to Independent Radio News, the main supplier of national and international news for Britain's commercial stations.  His reporting ranged from the death of General Franco to the inaugural flight of Concorde and included stints in politics and as a specialist in funny stories. In 1978 he “went indoors” to work as an editor, writing and compiling news bulletins for the commercial network. He wrote the lead story on the budget every year for 12 years, a tradition he continued when he moved back to BBC radio in 1990. There he wrote news initially for all the national BBC stations, but in latter years as a senior editor concentrated on Radio 4 and Radio 5live. He retired from the BBC in 2005. During his radio career he started up a two-hour magazine programme for the London station LBC, and produced a major history series for Radio 4. He wrote a historical novel which was serialised for radio, and freelance articles for The Guardian, Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Today newspaper and Catholic Times.

Wendy Richmond originally trained in Fine Art, turning to writing when it became easier to combine this with raising a family. She returned to study as a mature student in her early 30s gaining a degree in Philosophy, and later an MA in Scriptwriting. A Hawthornden Fellow, she has tutored creative writing for decades, edited poetry magazines, dabbled with filmmaking, and had interludes with theatricals. Active for many years in organising literary events as well as tutoring, she now leads a quieter life and has recently returned to her art – this sits nicely alongside the poetry. She says there is no greater delight than to read a truthful but crafted poem that engages the reader on that special journey – even more so when it has been written by an LSJ student.

Nick Roberts-Alatti Born in Birmingham, Nick cut his journalistic teeth at Cater's News Agency as a court and sports reporter. He later moved to the Birmingham Daily News where he became a senior reporter and a feature writer. His proudest journalism moments were working on the Lockerbie disaster, the Kegworth air crash and the release of the Birmingham Six. He also did a number of celebrity interviews including Pavarotti, Joan Collins, Ella Fitzgerald, Lenny Henry, Fry and Laurie and Simon Rattle. Nick worked on the short-lived 'The Planet on Sunday' before moving to Devon and working on the Exeter Express and Echo. In 2005 he turned freelance to spend more time with his young children. Nick has recently written for the Sunday Express, the Mail on Sunday, New!, Fresh and Practical Family History magazines as well as subediting for Country Gardener magazine.

Giles Trendle spent over ten years in Beirut reporting for, among others, The Economist, The Sunday Times, CNN and CBS radio. As both a print and broadcast journalist Giles covered the Lebanese civil war and the Western hostage saga. Giles has also been involved in major documentary shoots - including one for the BBC with Clive Anderson in which he appeared as Clive's guide and translator in Beirut. He has more recently written, directed and filmed documentaries on guerrilla warefare in south Lebanon, Depleted Uranium in Iraq and the Palestinian refugee issue. Giles also writes on asymetric warefare in today's world.

Femke van Iperen started working in London in 1996 as a freelance camerawoman. After completing a Film and Video degree at the London School of Printing and Distributive Trades she worked in television and corporate video production. Her first job was for Sky TV on Princess Diana’s funeral and she filmed around Asia and Europe for top corporates such as Ernst & Young. She worked for Reuters, CNBC, Carlton 021, the Travel Channel and other broadcasters before also moving into print as a journalist six years later. She works as a feature writer and editor on a variety of trade and local publications, and provides live camera experience for LSJ students.

Malvin van Gelderen started as a graphic designer followed by work on trade publications at Haymarket Press. The next 14 years as Art director on leisure, specialist and woman's interest at IPC Media. Malvin has also worked as designer of newspapers and colour supplement's at the Daily Mirror, The Sun, Express Newspapers and a specialist with Quark Xpress and Photoshop. He now runs a Photo Library and design consultancy.

Lorna V's career in journalism began on specialist trade publications and has since spanned tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, mass market and glossy women's magazines, lifestyle and men's titles.   Lorna has written extensively about health, alternative health, self-development, fitness, fashion and interiors, and general lifestyle subjects.  She was Time Out's consumer editor for four years, and more recently was involved in the launch of Time Out Cyprus and Time Out Athens. Lorna's first play was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate award and she was on attachment to the Soho Theatre for one year.  She is currently developing a play and working on a first novel.