Mandy Coe is an award winning poet writing for adults and children. Her poetry has appeared in the Guardian, Radio Times and on BBC television and radio (Woman’s Hour, Poetry Please, CBeebies).
Mandy works with organisations such as The Festival Hall, the Barbican and Liverpool Tate. She has contributed to A&C Black’s Poets’ Yearbook, Universal Verse’s Guide to Children’s Poetry, and has designed activity sheets for Booktrust’s ‘08 Children’s Bookweek Pack. Mandy also works for the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf and the Children’s Laureate’s website (The Poetry Friendly Classroom).
You can see a selection of Mandy’s poems at www.mandycoe.com
Workshops
Mandy works with all Key Stages and delivers INSET for teachers. A typical visit is made up of x2, two-hour workshops (fitted around lunch/break-times) with class-sized groups, or smaller. If she is travelling some distance a 10am start is appreciated.
Workshops are introduced by a short poetry reading and Q&A about being a writer. Mandy will then work with students as they write – in groups and individually – exploring voice, editing, a fresh approach to language and how to shape a poem. Her aim is to make poetry fun and accessible while supporting students to create new work. Activities include: other languages, first person narrative, developing metaphor and an introduction to poetry-related resources via CD and internet.
Mandy designs educational material for a number of national poetry sites for children and is happy to provide teachers with copies of exercises used in workshops.
Feedback
“All activities were relevant and well resourced… Her enthusiasm was infectious.” Leasowe Primary School.
“Mandy was the best example one can have of collaborative, creative work.” Gill Curry G&T Coordinator, Wirral.
“This INSET has given me confidence and lots of ideas” Yr 2 teacher, Times Educational Supplement.
“Thank you again for delivering fabulous workshops for our kids - they were truly inspired!  I now have a list of 20 wishing to do a lunchtime poetry club” Head of English, Cheadle Hulme High School
Awards
Mandy’s poetry has won a number of literary prizes including the Manchester Poetry Prize, the Ilkley Literature Festival Poetry Prize and The Guardian Poetry Prize. She has been awarded an Arts Council Writer’s Bursary and was made a Hawthornden Fellow in 2007.
Book list.
Mandy’s anthologised poetry for children includes: Here Come the Heebie-Jeebies (Hodder 2000), Wicked (Bloomsbury 2002), Sensational (Macmillan 2004), Fairy Poems (Macmillan 2006), The Works 6 (Macmillan 2007), Cbeebies, Poetry Pie (BBC television, Spring 2009).
Her most recent collection of poems for adults is The Weight of Cows (Shoestring Press). Her third collection for adults is to be published, autumn 2009. Her latest non-fiction book (co-written with Jean Sprackland) is ‘Our thoughts are bees’ Writers Working with Schools (Wordplay Press).