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Home » Tutors » Diane Samuels

WriteWords Tutor - Diane Samuels

Diane Samuels was born and raised in Liverpool. She read history at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and then went on to complete a PGCE in drama at Goldsmiths' College, London. She now lives in London. After teaching in inner London secondary schools for a number of years and working as education officer at the Unicorn Theatre, Diane has been writing extensively as a dramatist and author since the early 1990s.

"Kindertransport" won the Verity Bargate and Meyer-Whitworth Awards, and was first produced by Soho Theatre Company in 1993. Subsequently it has been translated into many languages, performed in the West End, Off Broadway and all over the world, revived in 2007 in a highly acclaimed production by Shared Experience Theatre Company. Her other plays include "The True-Life Legend of Mata Hari", Palace Theatre, Watford, 2002; "Cinderella's Daughter", Trestle Theatre tour, 2005; and "3 Sisters on Hope Street", based on Chekhov's "Three Sisters" and inspired by the Jewish community of her upbringing, co-produced by the Liverpool Everyman/Playhouse and Hampstead Theatres in 2008. She has also written widely for BBC radio, plays including "Swine", "Doctor Y", "Watch Out for Mister Stork" and "Hen Party".

For younger audiences, her plays include "One Hundred Million Footsteps" for Quicksilver Theatre Company; "Chalk Circle" and "How To Beat a Giant" at the Unicorn Theatre. Diane has wide experience of teaching creative writing, lecturing at the universities of Birmingham, Reading, Oxford, Goldsmiths' college, London and running workshops for organizations as diverse as IATE (Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education), Alternatives, The Theatre Royal, Haymarket and the National Gallery. She runs a regular writers group, is writer-in-residence at Grafton Primary School in Islington, north London and will be a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Westminster from Sept 2008.

Diane was one of a creative team awarded a Science on Stage and Screen Award by the Wellcome Trust in 2001. The resulting work, "PUSH", was performed at The People Show Studios in London in June 2003. Her short story, "Rope" was one of the winners in BBC Radio 4's online short story competition, broadcast in 2002. As Pearson Creative Research Fellow 2004/5 at the British Library, she completed research into magic and her booklet "A Writer's Magic Notebook", was published in 2006. Diane is currently writing an epic stage version of the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche, entitled "Psyche", for City of London School for Girls, and a piece about Mary Shelley for the Liverpool Everyword short play festival. She writes for the Jewish Quarterly and regularly reviews books for The Guardian.

WriteWords courses by Diane Samuels