CLARE POLLARD (CHAIR)
Clare Pollard was born in Bolton in 1978. Her first collection of poetry, The Heavy-Petting Zoo (1998), was written whilst she was still at school, and received an Eric Gregory Award. She has since published a further five collections with Bloodaxe, most recently Lives of the Female Poets. Her poem ‘Pollen’ was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Clare also translated Ovid’s Heroines for Bloodaxe, which she toured as a one-woman show. She writes across many other genres: her play The Weather was performed at the Royal Court Theatre, she wrote the non-fiction title Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind Children’s Picture Books, and her adult novels are Delphi and The Modern Fairies. The latter was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Prize and won the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize. Clare’s latest children’s novel is The Othernauts. Clare supports herself working as an editor, teacher, reviewer and arts administrator. She was editor of Modern Poetry in Translation for five years, and Artistic Director of Winchester Poetry Festival. She has judged many awards, including the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year and the National Poetry Competition. She has also written and presented two documentaries for radio, ‘My Male Muse’ (2007), which was a Radio 4 Pick of the Year, and ‘Unlocking Anne’ about Anne Locke (BBC Radio 3, 2023). Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Doctor of Letters.
(Photo: Sophie Davidson)
KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI
Krzysztof Pius Zanussi is a Polish film and theatre director, producer and screenwriter. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee. He is also a professor at the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School of the University of Silesia in Katowice. He was born in 1939 in Warsaw as an only child of Jerzy Zanussi and Wanda (née Niewiadomska). He studied physics at Warsaw University (Uniwersytet Warszawski) and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagielloński) in Kraków. He is a graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź.
Krzysztof has directed over 40 films, many award-winning, in a 50-year career, including Camouflage, Spiral, The Constant Factor, From a Far Country, The Temptation, A Year of the Quiet Sun, At Full Gallop, Life As A Sexually Transmitted Disease, Foreign Body, Ether and most recently The Perfect Number.
He is the recipient of the Golden Lion at the 1984 Venice Film Festival for A Year of the Quiet Sun, the Jury Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival for The Constant Factor, as well as two Grands Prix at the 1977 and 2000 Gdynia Film Festival for Camouflage and Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, respectively. He was a director of the Polish Film Studio TOR and has received several prizes and awards, including the David di Donatello Prize of the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, the Cavalier’s Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order, and the Cavalier de L’Ordre des Sciences et Lettres.
Krzysztof was Tadeusz’s great friend and collaborator for over 45 years and Tadeusz appeared in around 20 of his film and TV projects.
(Photo: Adrian Tync)
CAROLE WELCH
Carole Welch is an editorial consultant who ran Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton’s literary imprint, for over 30 years. She began her publishing career in publicity before joining Sceptre as Senior Editor. She rose to become its Publishing Director and led its development in the 1990s from a paperback list into a publisher of original fiction and non-fiction, with many prize-winners and bestsellers to its name. She published an array of distinguished writers from around the world such as David Mitchell, Andrew Miller, Siri Hustvedt, Thomas Keneally, Jill Dawson, Sjόn, Andreï Makine, Fiona McFarlane, Marguerite Duras, Bahaa Taher, Melvyn Bragg, Dinaw Mengestu, Michael Chabon, Jenn Ashworth, Miroslav Penkov and Naoki Higashida. Between them her authors have won numerous major prizes including the Booker Prize, Costa Book of the Year, James Tait Black Memorial, Prix Goncourt, Miles Franklin, Pulitzer, John Llewellyn Rhys, International Prize for Arabic Fiction, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, BBC International Short Story Award and Nordic Prize.
Carole has won, and been shortlisted twice, for Imprint and Editor of the Year at the British Book Awards. She was named one of the 50 most influential people in publishing in the Observer, was shortlisted for the inaugural Kym Scott Walwyn Award, which celebrates exceptional women in publishing, and was a member of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Board for 13 years.
KATE SINCLAIR
Kate Sinclair studied English literature at York University followed by an MA in Theatre Direction at Goldsmiths, University of London, and was awarded a British Council scholarship to Stary Teatr, Krakow. She worked as a director in Poland and the UK, including at Stary Teatr, the Cheltenham Everyman, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gate Theatre Dublin, Derby Playhouse, Palace Theatre Watford, the Young Vic and elsewhere; she was later an Associate Director at the Bolton Octagon and Century Theatre, Keswick. In 2002 she moved into film specialising in sourcing unpublished books for Film 4, the UK Film Council, Kudos Pictures and Free-Range films. These included Slumdog Millionaire (Q and A), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Brick Lane. In 2013 she became an Executive Producer for television at Company Pictures until 2015 when she moved in the same role to The Forge. Here she found and developed book-based projects, including The Miniaturist, which she executive produced for the BBC/WGBH in 2017. In 2019 she set up her own company Alchemy Entertainment Ltd and in 2023 she founded the Tadeusz Bradecki Foundation and Prize to create a legacy in memory of her husband, the international director, actor and writer.