SoA in Person | Educational Writers Group Summer Symposium

Join us for a convivial afternoon of talks by academic and educational writers and publishers.

Hear from Cathy Reay, our keynote speaker, and the author of How To Be Disabled and Proud (or at least kinda sorta okay with it). Enjoy afternoon tea and cakes whilst listening to Rhona Snelling in conversation with award-winning ELT author of numerous adult, secondary and primary course books, Judy Garton-Sprenger.

Three Educational Writers Group members share their thoughts in a series of lightning talks on: 

• Ken Wilson: Royalties versus flat fees
• Julie Moore: Language use and AI
• Marcelo Staricoff: Development and evolution of ideas

Stay informed with our Industry Insider on the future of educational and academic publishing, with publishers Sanjee de Silva (Sweet Cherry), Victoria Eva (Elsevier) – Chair of the PA’s Academic Publishers Council and Brigid Evans (Pearson) – Chair of the PA’s AI taskforce and chaired by EWG Committee member, Emily Guille-Marrett.

We’ll end the day with networking drinks.

This event is kindly supported by the Publishers Association.

Programme

• 1.30pm – Doors open: water on arrival.
• 1.55pm – Welcome by Chair of the SoA’s Educational Writers Group, Rhona Snelling
• 2-2.30pm – Keynote address by Cathy Reay

Member Lightning talks: 

• 2.30pm-2.50pm – Ken Wilson: royalties versus flat fees
• 2.50pm-3.10pm – Julie Moore: AI and educational writers
• 3.10pm-3.30pm –  Marcelo Staricoff on development and evolution of ideas

• 3.30pm-3.45pm – Comfort break and professional networking [with tea and cakes]
• 3.45pm – 4.30pm – Rhona Snelling in conversation with Judy Garton-Sprenger
• 4.30pm – 5.30pm – Industry Insider panel discussion chaired by Emily Guille-Marrett with Sanjee de Silva, Victoria Eva and Brigid Evans. 
• 5.30pm-7pm – Networking drinks (kindly sponsored by the Publishers Association)

The Line up 

Brigid Evans

Brigid Evans is the Director of Business Operations and Chief of Staff to the US CEO, based in London, UK. She is responsible for directing and executing strategic engagement with policymakers and thought leaders within the US market, in addition to supporting the business activities of the Assessment and Qualifications division globally. Previously she was the Director of Global Policy with a remit focusing on artificial intelligence, intellectual property, data protection, and trade issues, among others. She has represented trade associations at the transnational level, acting as observer to WIPO meetings on copyright. Most recently, Miss Evans was based in Washington, DC supporting Pearson’s US government relations function. Originally from Buffalo, NY, Miss Evans graduated from the University at Buffalo, with a B.A. in Political Science and is currently pursuing a M.A. in AI and Ethics from Birkbeck, University of London.

Sarah Burton, SoA Host and Deputy Chief Executive

Sarah Burton is the Deputy Chief Executive at SoA. Sarah also leads the advisory team and advises members on all business aspects of the writing profession, including vetting contracts. She also works across the SoA’s list of literary estates, licensing rights in titles by authors such as Brendan Behan, Rose Macaulay and John Masefield. As co-coordinator of the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group, she has a particular interest in industry issues affecting creators of children’s books.

Sanjee de Silva

Sanjee de Silva, is the Publisher at Sweet Cherry Publishing, an award-winning independent children’s book publisher based in Leicester, UK. He is responsible for supercharging its mission to make reading fun and ensure that all children have access to great literature.Sanjee is known in the industry for his colourful approach to making books fun, accessible and diverse. His engaged and enthusiastic outlook has recently led to his appointment to the Publishers Association’s Council, where he will play a crucial role in setting strategic direction, developing industry policies, and advocating for the publishing sector.

Outside of this, Sanjee can often be found partaking in panel discussions and attending trade fairs, bringing his unique brand and distinctive fashion choices to the industry. Sanjee has been unapologetic in using his presence to raise awareness of unemployment within the publishing industry, lobbying for a better experience for those who work to bring the magic of books to life.

Victoria Eva

As SVP of Global Policy and Industry Relations at Elsevier, Victoria is responsible for managing Elsevier’s policies and strategy for access to research outputs, and for coordinating on global policy and legislative issues pertaining to Open Science. Victoria’s team also manages and coordinates Elsevier’s partnerships within the industry via trade and member associations.

Victoria has a background in policy, publishing, and communications. Her previous roles include managing policy at education publisher Pearson Plc, and Head of Communications at UK trade body The Publishers Association.

Judy Garton-Sprenger

Judy Garton-Sprenger is an award-winning ELT author of numerous adult, secondary and primary course books. She has also written radio series for the BBC World Service, and toured the world with the English Teaching Theatre. She has served as Chair of the SoA Educational Writers Group Committee, is a member of the PD James Memorial Fund Committee, and is an assessor of grant applications to the Contingency Fund.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Emily Guille-Marrett has worked in educational publishing for the schools and home learning market for over 20 years. She is joint Series Editor and co-author of over 80 books for Collins Education’s reading programme Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds.

Cathy Reay

Cathy Reay is a disabled editor and author with over 10 years experience working in educational publishing, and  is currently at Cambridge University Press and Assessment. She published her first book How To Be Disabled and Proud (or at least kinda sorta okay with it) for middle-grade readers in March 2025 through Puffin, and contributed to three non-fiction books in 2023. In her day job, she works as a Product Owner at Cambridge University Press and Assessment, in the English department. She has a background in ELT, having worked at universities teaching EAP, in France teaching EFL, and in ELT editorial roles at four educational publishing houses in the UK (OUP, CUPA, Macmillan and Cengage/NGL). Cathy lives near London with her two kids and one teething cat.  

Rhona Snelling, Event Host and Chair of our Educational Writers Group

Rhona Snelling is a freelance ELT author, speaker, project manager, and editor.

Rhona is qualified with International House and has extensive experience teaching in Europe and New Zealand. She has been an in-house editor at Pearson and OUP, and holds a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition from the University of Oxford. Rhona has authored numerous ELT course books, including the best-selling Get Ready for IELTS (Collins), English for Life: Speaking (Collins), Speak Your Mind (Macmillan) and Gateway to the world A1+ (Macmillan). She has been nominated for an ESU English Language Award. Her website is www.rhonasnelling.com.

Ken Wilson

Ken has been involved in English Language Teaching for more than fifty years and a published author of ELT materials since he was 23, when he wrote and recorded an album of ‘teaching songs’ called Mister Monday. Since then, he’s written or co-written about thirty ELT titles, including a dozen series of course books. His UK publishers include Oxford University Press, Macmillan and Cengage. He’s also been published locally in Spain, Germany, Poland, China and Indonesia. He was fortunate to be writing at a time when paying royalties for course material was the norm, and one of the reasons he wants to become a Committee member is to campaign on behalf of new writers who are not offered this option.

He’s appalled that ELT publishers now consider royalties a thing of the past, their reason being the cost of the extras that are now integral parts of course material. He accepts that this presents a short-term expense for them, but he also believes that publishers recoup these extra costs quite quickly when a course sells well, and contracts for new authors should offer a royalty some way down the line when these expenses have been met. 

Like most educational writers, he’s also bothered by the obvious elephant in the room, AI, and he’d like to be part of EWG discussions and research on this topic. 

Marcelo Staricoff

Marcelo is currently an Assistant Professor in Education at the University of Sussex where he leads and the Masters in Education Course and teaches on the BA in Primary and Early Years Education with QTS Course. Marcelo is the author of The Joy of Not Knowing, published by Routledge in 2021 and of Start Thinking, published by Imaginative Minds in 2005. 

Julie Moore

Julie Moore is a freelance writer of English Language Teaching (ELT) materials, lexicographer, and language researcher based in Bristol. She’s been working on learner’s dictionaries for more than 25 years, involved in projects for all the major dictionary publishers. As well as dictionaries, she works on more general ELT materials for the classroom and self-study, and specific vocabulary resources. She also spends way too much time getting drawn into language questions on social media.

About the Educational Writers Group (EWG)

The SoA Educational Writers Group (EWG) was established in 1964 to:

• Protect the interests of educational authors in professional matters, especially contracts, rates of pay, digitisation and copyright
• Keep its members informed about developments in education, curriculum, ELT, digital media and government policy
• Lobby for adequate funding for books in schools, colleges and libraries, and for well-stocked public libraries and professionally-staffed libraries in all educational institutions
• Encourage publishers in all media to respect the highest professional standards in educational writing
• Enable educational writers to network and socialise in congenial surroundings.

Members of the SoA who write materials for any educational context can choose to join the EWG and receive digital newsletters to keep them abreast of EWG events within the SoA and the wider educational landscape, which the SoA campaigns to ensure is equitable for members.

Send us your questions

If you would like to send questions in advance, email AGanley@Societyofauthors.org with ’EWG Summer Symposium- Question’ in the subject header. We will prioritise questions sent in advance and answer as many as we can from the audience on the day.

Need to know 

Accessibility

• The SoA Event Space has ramp access and accessible toilets. Please get in touch with us to discuss your access needs.
• Online attendees will have the option to turn on the live transcript, to watch with subtitles.
• If you require BSL interpretation for this event, please email events@societyofauthors.org.

Before the event

• For online attendees – Once registered, you will be sent a confirmation email with the Zoom link to join. 
• For in person attendees – Once registered, you will be send a confirmation email of your booking.
• If the confirmation email doesn’t arrive in your inbox, please check your junk/spam email folder.
• Please add events@societyofauthors.org to your Safe Senders list so you receive our confirmation and reminder emails.

During the event

• For online attendees – this event will take place on Zoom Webinar; you will not be visible on screen but will be able ask questions via the Q&A function or interact via the chat box.
• This event will be recorded but you won’t be on screen.
• There will be one Zoom link for the live event running from 2-5.30pm.

After the event

• Paid attendees of this event will be able to catch the recording on our Vimeo channel (password protected)

Feeling unwell?

We recommend the following:

• Staying home if you’re feeling unwell or have flu-like symptoms
• Washing your hands when coming in from the outdoors and / or before touching your face
• Applying alcohol hand sanitiser (we will have these on site)
• We advise attendees to wear a face mask if they feel comfortable doing so

Booking

Please read our event booking Terms and Conditions: https://societyofauthors.org/legal-privacy/event-terms/

Book your place by using the registration form below.

Tickets 

£9.50 for online tickets

£19.50 for SoA Member in person tickets 

£29.50 for Non-Member in person tickets

**We can only issue refunds up to 7 days prior to the event date, any refund claims after that period will be invalid**