Life Writing North East brings together writers, artists, and creative practitioners from across the region.
We work together and individually, bringing a wealth of expertise and passion to our projects. Check out our bios and get in touch if you’d like to work with one – or all of us! If you are a creative or researcher working across Life Writing and are interested in our work, please visit our contact page.
Lucie Brownlee
Specialisms: Memoir, life writing, creative non-fiction, script.
About: Lucie is an award-winning writer, tutor, and life-writing specialist based in the Tees Valley. Her memoir LIFE AFTER YOU is a Sunday Times bestseller and was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick published by PRH. Her focus is now mainly on scripted TV comedy, which focuses on North East voices. Her comedy drama Wife After Death was developed by Objective Fiction and Channel 4. She is the 2026 winner of the Ch4 Writing for Television Award, working with Merman productions for the year.
She teaches and mentors memoir with Faber Academy and Curtis Brown Creative.
Lucie holds a doctorate in Creative and Critical Writing (‘Notions of Loss in the Writing of Creative Non-Fiction’, Newcastle University.)
Karen Traynor
Specialisms: Theatre, acting, directing, dramaturgy.
About: Karen is a critically acclaimed actor and director.
Recently she directed the world premier of Shelagh Stephenson’s new play ‘Astell and Woolf’ & Lawnmowers Theatre Company’s 40th Anniversary production ‘Billy and Teddy’s Amazing Adventure’.
Her production of ‘Tiny Fragments of Beautiful Light’, by Allison Davies received widespread critical acclaim after its 2023 premier at Alphabetti Theatre and subsequent national tour, before becoming a finalist for Production of the Year in the North East Culture Awards, 2025.
Find out more about Karen →
Liz Corney
Specialisms: Songwriting, music education, creative facilitation.
About: Liz is a singer, songwriter, pianist, and music educator based in Sunderland. Long known as a main collaborator in the North East indie and folk scenes – prominently through her work with The Cornshed Sisters and Field Music – she transitioned into a solo artist with the release of her debut album in late 2024.
In tandem with her performing career, Liz works extensively as a music educator and community facilitator. She designs and delivers singing and composition workshops for people of all ages and backgrounds, partnering with prominent regional organisations such as New Writing North, We Make Culture, Helix Arts, and The Sage Gateshead.
Find out more about Liz →
Rowan McCabe
Specialisms: Poetry, performance, film.
About: Rowan is a poet from Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2015, he became the world’s first Door-to-Door Poet. Knocking on strangers’ doors, he asked what was important to them. He then went away and wrote a poem about this, free of charge, before bringing it back and performing it on their doorstep.
Rowan has also written for Channel 4, Radio 3’s ‘The Verb’, and his work has been featured in the Guardian and on BBC Breakfast. He has toured across the UK and has appeared at Glastonbury Festival and the Royal Albert Hall. His first full-length book, The Door-to-Door Poet, was published by Eye Books in September 2025.
Find out more about Rowan →
Jonluke McKie
Specialisms: Dramaturgy, theatre making, illustration, community arts.
About: Jonluke is an award winning multidisciplinary artist whose work spans theatre, music and visual art. His work explores themes of class, sexuality and intersecting stories.
He writes and directs new theatre, often engaging communities and drawing on his own lived experience. His work has toured nationally and internationally, recent credits include his own play, The Devil Danced in Our Eyes, co-written with Allison Davies, based on his experience of being groomed as a teenager.
As an illustrator, Jonluke specialises in picture books and community arts projects, he has recently collaborated with organisations including Rotherham Children’s Capital of Culture and Rural Arts.
Find out more about Jonluke →
Lisette Auton
Specialisms: Multidisciplinary.
About: Lisette is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist based in Darlington, who works as an author, playwright, activist, creative practitioner, mentor, film and theatre maker, and performer. She creates work for both children and adults, sometimes both at the same time.
Her focus is on place, process, and creative access. She is passionate about telling the stories she struggled to find – those that reflect her northern, working class, disabled and neurodivergent experience – and making sure that everyone can see themselves in, or are authors of, the stories that are being told.
Find out more about Lisette →
Laura McDonagh
Specialisms: Memoir, life writing, creative non-fiction, oral history, journalism, creative workshop facilitation
About: Laura is an award-winning writer based in Newcastle. Her work explores memory, place, cultural identity and the experience of being Irish in Britain. Her writing has been listed for the Life Writing Prize and the Fish Short Memoir and she is a regular contributor to The Irish Times. Laura is also the writer and interviewer behind Projecting Grief, a photography and storytelling project exploring the relationship between grief and creativity. She is an experienced teacher and workshop facilitator.
Laura’s memoir, COMMONPLACE (New Island Books), will be published in February 2027.
Find out more about Laura →
Becci Sharrock
Specialisms: Theatre-making, creative producing, script writing
About: Becci is a writer, theatre maker, creative producer based in Gateshead. Her socially engaged practice has seen her create short stories and poetry inspired by living legends in Corby; develop theatre show Letters to Myself following six months of public engagement in Sunderland and South Shields and tour it nationally; and run workshops with participants of all ages and backgrounds.
Among many other theatre projects, she adapted The Secret Garden for the stage, restructuring the creative process to ensure it is accessible.
Find out more about Becci here →
Sam Slatcher
Specialisms: Songwriting, performance, community songwriting, storytelling, creative workshop facilitation.
About: Sam is a folk singer-songwriter and community arts practitioner based in Durham. Sam engages people through songs and stories that inspire hope, spark connection and give voice to unheard experiences of belonging.
He has released five records, including Stories of Sanctuary, made with people seeking refuge in County Durham, and Passengers & Pioneers, which marked 200 years of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. His work has taken him from Durham Cathedral to performing live at Paddington Station, and onto BBC Two and the BBC Folk Show.
As a facilitator, Sam helps communities turn their stories into songs, working with charities, schools, museums and heritage groups. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from Durham University.
Find out more about Sam:
Jules Williams
Specialism: Photography
About: Jules is a North East-based photographer whose work explores memory, connection and the stories held within everyday life. Working across documentary, family, lifestyle and editorial photography, she is drawn to candid moments and the small details that become part of our personal histories.
Jules studied photography at university and has also worked with clients including Penguin Books, Puffin, Anthropologie and Speedo. At the heart of her practice is the belief that photographs become future heirlooms – a visual record of people, relationships and lives as they are lived.
Caitlin Kendall
Specialism: Poetry
About: Caitlin is a Research Development Fund-supported Creative Practice PhD candidate at Northumbria University. Her work has been shortlisted for several awards, including New Northern Poets, the Creative Futures Literary Award, and the E.H P. Barnard Spring Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in a range of print and online journals, including The Alchemy Spoon, The Black Cat Poetry Press, Fly on the Wall, and The Bournemouth Journal.
Her debut poetry pamphlet Nothing is Yours (Written Off Publishing, 2023) explores themes of motherhood, memory and nature with an artivism lens. Caitlin has performed her work at venues ranging from regional literary festivals, such as Hexham Book Festival, to international platforms including the New York City Poetry Festival. She is currently based in Northumberland where she continues to develop her creative and critical research.
Lizzie Lovejoy
Specialisms: Spoken Word, Live/Speed Poetry, Script Writing, Ukulele, Voice Acting, Illustration & Visual Arts.
About: Working class Gobby Lass, Lizzie Lovejoy, is a poet, performer and picture maker. This vocal-local has spent their life listening to peoples words, and now Lizzie translates local narratives into creative works.
Lizzie has been commissioned by the BBC, Durham University and Poet in the City. They have performed in both traditional and non-traditional spaces, from thousands at festivals and to 6 people in a tunnel.
Lizzie received the NWN Sid Chaplin award 2025 and NE Visual Artist of the Year 2023.
Find out more about Lizzie →
Amy Lewis
Specialisms: Theatre-making, directing, writing, community arts facilitation & youth theatre direction
About: Amy is a Geordie writer and director whose work explores personal stories and social injustice, with a particular focus on the experiences of women and girls. Through collaborative theatre-making, she brings true stories to the stage and draws attention to social injustice. Her most recent play, THIS IS NOT OVER, explores domestic violence and coercive control amid family law proceedings, based on real accounts.
She is Artistic Director of Awkward City Theatre Company and founder of Young Theatre Makers, a performance company for young people. Her practice spans professional theatre, youth and community projects, creating opportunities for people to share their experiences and develop their own creative voices. Most recently, she was Assistant Director on the remount of I, Daniel Blake, working alongside director Mark Calvert and was Assistant Director for Open Clasp Theatre Company, working alongside director Laura Lindow.
Amy trained in Devised Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, Devon and in the Suzuki Method with Tadashi Suzuki in Toga, Japan and is mentored by theatre director, Katie Mitchell.
Rachel Stockdale
Specialism: Acting, theatre devising.
About: Rachel is an actress, theatre-maker, and qualified teacher. She studied BA (hons) Performance at Northumbria University in Newcastle, while training in London at the National Youth Theatre and National Youth Film Academy. Rachel went on to receive a full scholarship to the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, gaining an MA in Professional Acting.
As an actress Rachel has performed all over the North, from ‘Tub Time’ at Northern Stage, ‘Coal Girls’ at Oldham Coliseum, to ‘A View from the Bridge’ at the Bolton Octagon and can currently be seen in ‘The Black Prince’ on Netflix and ‘Bin Day’ on BBC iPlayer
She is a winner of the North East Culture Arts Council Award 2024.
Find out more about Rachel →
Chess Tomlinson
Specialisms: Performance, writing, theatre making, screenwriting
About: Chess is a Gateshead-based writer, performer, and comedy creator whose work champions bold, darkly funny, female and non-binary-led stories rooted in Northern life. A member of the BBC Comedy Collective 2025–26, Chess wrote and performed in BBC Comedy’s Becoming a Karen, which received an RTS Award nomination. They were runner-up for the 2024 David Nobbs Memorial Trust Award and have developed projects with independent and established production companies.
Their stage comedy Mam Me Mia was showcased at Newcastle’s Live Theatre in 2026. Chess also teaches screenwriting and is passionate about telling authentic, irreverent stories that challenge traditional representations of the North East.
Find out more about Amy here →
Dr Heather Sutherland
Specialism: Autoethnography – writing from personal experience to explore wider cultural themes.
About: Heather is a lecturer in psychology at York St John University. Her current research focuses on qualitative and interdisciplinary explorations of (suicide) bereavement, grief, and loss, as well as mental health and wellbeing in UK academia. She is also qualitatively interested in the personal emotion work, experiences and support needs of researchers conducting work in the broad area that is mental health-related research. She has strong interest in utilising autoethnographic approaches and her research draws on a ‘lived(ing) experience’ lens/perspective.
Find out more about Heather →
Jennie Brewis
Specialisms: Creative producer, songwriter, choir leader and musician.
About: Jennie has extensive experience producing creative projects rooted in community participation and artist collaboration. She specialises in live music events and has worked with writers across a range of disciplines.
She currently works as project producer for Durham Brass Festival, Education and Outreach lead for Music Beyond Mainstream, songwriter for The Story (Durham) and as a choir lead.
Jennie is a co founding member of pop-folk band The Cornshed Sisters: ‘a balm to modern pop and a Psalm to the power of story telling.’ (DROWNED IN SOUND); ‘a cappella finger-clicking ditty ‘Pies for the Fair’ couldn’t be more jolly. Even if it is about cannibalism.’ (THE GUARDIAN)
Her songwriting zooms in on the overlooked details of everyday life, finding the humour, oddness and warmth in those small moments that tell a bigger story.
Emily Low
Specialisms: Theatre, comedy, clowning.
About: Emily is a Newcastle-based writer, performer and storyteller working across theatre, television and comedy. She won the Channel 4/New Writing North Writing for TV Award in 2024 for her comedy Lucky Cat, which she developed with Rollem Productions.
Her stage work includes Fold Me a Paper Man at Alphabetti Theatre and Chopstick Dance! at Live Theatre. Emily also creates children’s theatre and delivers creative writing and storytelling workshops, championing the power of personal stories to connect people and communities.
Dr Ruth Raynor
Specialisms: Writing, theatre making, research.
About: Dr Ruth Raynor is a North East-based writer, researcher and theatre-maker interested in the stories we tell about place, emotion, politics and everyday life. Her work moves between life writing, performance and participatory research, often developing creative work collaboratively from people’s lived experiences. Her plays include Diehard Gateshead, made through research with women affected by austerity, and Grounded, developed with women who had lost loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ruth has written and spoken nationally and internationally on creative writing and performance as social research, and the everyday lives of social policy. Her work on Grounded saw her named Writer of the Year at the North East Culture Awards.
Louise Taylor
Specialisms: Photography, archiving
About: Louise is a socially engaged photographer living in rural County Durham. Her work often focuses on rural issues, people and place, and is rooted in a strong connection to the land. She is a founding member of Wideyed, a member of The Photobook Club Collective and she is motivated to present her work in unusual ways, with each opportunity a chance to reimagine it for a new space or audience.
She also develops and delivers participatory photography projects in the community, recently working with Jack Drum Arts / North Pennines National Landscapes on a Land of Lead and Silver commission.
Leoni Andrews-Dingwall
Specialism: Multi-media artist.
About: Leoni is a Newcastle-based visual artist whose work draws on lived experience, memory and social history. Working across painting, collage, sculpture, writing and found materials, she explores themes including childhood, class, addiction, family and socioeconomic inequality.
Her practice is rooted in the belief that art can make personal experience visible while creating connection and recognition for others. A recent Fine Art graduate, Leoni was a joint winner of the 2026 New Graduate Award from Middlesbrough Art Week and The Auxiliary.
Tahmina Ali
Specialisms: Poetry
About: Tahmina Ali is an award-winning Bangladeshi-Geordie spoken word poet and creative practitioner whose work cuts through silence with honesty, tenderness, and political edge. Rooted in lived experience, her poetry explores identity, belonging, motherhood, mental health, and cultural inheritance through a distinctly northern lens.
Using storytelling as both an artistic and social tool, Tahmina creates work that challenges stereotypes, confronts erasure, and centres voices often pushed to the margins. Her practice is grounded in connection, resistance, and the belief that poetry can create meaningful social change.
She is the founder and host of Freespill, a spoken word platform championing underrepresented voices in the North East, and has collaborated with organisations including GemArts Masala Festival. Her work has featured on platforms including the BBC and The Glasshouse, with performances across the UK.
Tahmina is also the author of SPOKEN and co-editor of Thresholds: Poems by South Asian Women in North East England.
Read more about Tahmina here
Christina Castling
Specialisms: Playwriting, creative facilitation
About: Christina is a playwright based in County Durham. Her writing has depth and playful honesty, often asking questions about belonging, identity and home. Her recent credits include A Way Home and Beyond Caring and she is currently working on a project exploring the journey from page to stage in children’s book adaptations.
She has worked as a freelance facilitator with children and young people for over 15 years with organisations including Live Theatre, New Writing North and Seven Stories.
Find out more about Christina here
