Louisa Leaman (born 24 June 1976) is a London-based author. Her debut novel, The Perfect Dress, published by Penguin Random House, is an uplifting contemporary romance about vintage wedding dresses. In the US it is titled The Second Chance Boutique and is published by Sourcebooks. It is also published in Germany, Italy and Spain. Leaman's second novel, Meant To Be, was published in October 2020. As well as writing novels, Louisa researches and writes for the Victoria & Albert Museum website.
Louisa was born on 24 June 1976 and grew up in Loughton, Essex. She was educated at Bancroft's School, Woodford Green, then attended Leeds University, where she studied Art History followed by a PGCE teaching qualification in Secondary Art & Design.
In 2004 Louisa won a writing competition in the Times Educational Supplement . [1] This led to a publishing deal with Continuum International Publishing), for whom she wrote five teaching/behaviour management guides. As an experienced teacher and behaviour consultant, she delivered teacher training throughout the UK, mainly based on her book Managing Very Challenging Behaviour.
Louisa has written for Hachette Children's Books, with titles including The Garden and Born Free Elephant Rescue: The True Story of Nina and Pinkie, based on The Born Free Foundation's dramatic rescue of orphaned elephants. The book describes the story of Nina the African elephant, who was released into the wild after decades of captivity. Nina's story was also televised by the BBC, in a documentary featuring British actor, Martin Clunes, called Born to be Wild. Louisa has also contributed to many journals, magazines and newspapers, including The Guardian , The Observer , and The Independent . She wrote a weekly column for the Times Education Supplement Magazine and a column for the Guardian-Series newspaper about motherhood.
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Roman à clef, French for novel with a key, is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction. This metaphorical key may be produced separately—typically as an explicit guide to the text by the author—or implied, through the use of epigraphs or other literary techniques.
Sangharakshita was a British spiritual teacher and writer, and the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, which in 2010 was renamed the Triratna Buddhist Community.
Helen Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock, was an English philosopher of morality, education, and mind, and a writer on existentialism. She is best known for chairing an inquiry whose report formed the basis of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. She served as Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge from 1984 to 1991.
Daniel Fingeroth is an American comic book writer and editor, best known for a long stint as group editor of the Spider-Man books at Marvel Comics.
Patricia M. Broadfoot, CBE, FRSA, FAcSS was vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire from 2006 to 2010. She served as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol from 2002 to 2006.
Lily Adams Beck, née Elizabeth Louisa Moresby was a British writer of short-stories, novels, biographies and esoteric books, under the names of L. Adams Beck, E. Barrington and Louis Moresby, and sometimes other variations: Lily Adams Beck, Elizabeth Louisa Beck, Eliza Louisa Moresby Beck and Lily Moresby Adams
Beryl Agatha Gilroy was a Guyanese educator, novelist, ethno-psychotherapist, and poet. The Guardian described her as "one of Britain's most significant post-war Caribbean migrants." She emigrated to London in 1951 as part of the Windrush generation to attend the University of London, then spend decades teaching, writing, and improving education. She worked primarily with Black women and children as a psychotherapist and her children's books are lauded as some of the first representations of Black London. She is perhaps best known as the first Black head teacher in London.
Andrew Salkey was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaican and Panamanian origin. He was born in Panama but raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pursue a job in the literary world, combining a job in a South London Comprehensive school teaching English with a job working on the door of a West End night club. The 1960s and 1970s saw Salkey working as a broadcaster for the BBC World Service, Caribbean section. A prolific writer and editor, he was the author of more than 30 books in the course of his career, including novels for adults and for children, poetry collections, anthologies, travelogues and essays. In the 1960s he was a co-founder with John La Rose and Kamau Brathwaite of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). Salkey died in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he had been teaching since the 1970s, holding a lifetime position as Writer-In-Residence at Hampshire College.
Emma L. Darwin is an English historical fiction author, writer of the novels The Mathematics of Love (2006) and A Secret Alchemy (2008) and various short stories. She is the great-great-granddaughter of Charles and Emma Darwin.
Dharma combat, called issatsu or shosan in Japanese, is a term in some schools of Buddhism referring to an intense exchange between student and teacher, and sometimes between teachers, as an occasion for one or both to demonstrate his or her understanding of the Dharma and Buddhist tenets. It is used by both students and teachers to test and sharpen their understanding. Practice is primarily seen in Zen traditions, particularly Rinzai Zen and the Kwan Um School of Zen. In both, it is a key component in the Dharma transmission process.
Shodo Harada, or Harada Rōshi, is a Rinzai priest, author, calligrapher, and head abbot of Sōgen-ji — a three-hundred-year-old temple in Okayama, Japan. He has become known as a "teacher of teachers", with masters from various lineages coming to sit sesshin with him in Japan or during his trips to the United States and Europe.
Don't Forget the Bacon! is a children's book written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins. It was published by Bodley Head in 1976. The story is about a little boy who tries to memorise a list of groceries his mother has asked him to buy. The book has been used as a teaching tool to instruct children about early learning concepts.
Stephen A. C. Gorard is a British academic who specialises in the sociology of education. He is Professor of Education and Public Policy at Durham University. Stephen Gorard is the most published and cited UK author in education, and in the top ten academic journals worldwide.
A String in the Harp is a children's fantasy novel by Nancy Bond first published in 1976. It received a 1977 Newbery Honor award and the Welsh Tir na n-Og Award. It tells of the American Morgan family who temporarily move to Wales, where Peter Morgan finds a magical harp key that gives him vivid visions of the past. This well-received novel is an unusual time travel story, with its focus on the emotional pain and separation the Morgans experience after the death of their mother and the gradual healing they find through their experiences.
Jonathan Smith is an English novelist, playwright, writer and teacher. A career English teacher, best known for his novels, he has also written many radio plays.
Paul Geoffrey Edwards was a wide-ranging literary scholar at the University of Edinburgh, appreciated for his "adventurous and unorthodox teaching".
Marjolijn Verspoor is a Dutch linguist. She is a professor of English language and English as a second language at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. She is known for her work on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and the application of dynamical systems theory to study second language development. Her interest is also in second language writing.
Patsy M. Lightbown is an American applied linguist whose research focuses on the teaching and acquisition of second and/or foreign languages in a classroom context. Her theories of second language acquisition earned her the SPEAQ Award for "contributions which have had an impact on the entire English teaching community in Quebec". She served in the United States Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa from 1965 to 1967. In her more than forty years in the field she has taught at multiple universities across the United States, Australia and Canada. She holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She has written seven published books and has been featured in many book chapters and refereed journals. She currently works as an independent consultant, editor, researcher and writing in second language acquisition and learning.
Marja Kubašec was a Sorbian writer who is considered by literary historians to be the first woman to write novels in Upper Sorbian. Working as a schoolteacher, she wrote theatre plays, short stories, biographies, and novels dealing with the history of the Sorbian people.