Sue Kay
I got my first English Language teaching job in Lyons, France in 1983. I did my Dip TEFL there in 1985, and then came back to Oxford where I started working for a teachers’ cooperative. I stayed there for 18 years, and while I was there, I was in charge of supplementary materials. By a stroke of good fortune, I met Simon Greenall who asked me to write the Resource Packs to go alongside his best-selling course, Reward. Since then, I’ve been involved in many writing projects, including the Inside Out and New Inside Out series and Focus, an upper secondary course, both of which I co-wrote with Vaughan Jones. I’m very happy to be working on ELT Teacher 2 Writer with Karen and Karen – we go way back, and without them Inside Out would never have seen the light of day. Karen Spiller was the Publisher who commissioned it, and Karen White was the Editorial Manager on both editions. Working together on ELT Teacher 2 Writer is a perfect way for us to share our joint experience in the profession, and an extremely stimulating and enjoyable project to be part of.
Karen White
I became interested in ELT materials writing and editing while I was working at Bilkent University in Turkey during the 90s. I was lucky enough to get a place on a materials-writing course which was set up for Bilkent and run at Reading University over a summer. When we went back to Ankara I worked in a small team writing a series of Student’s Books, Workbooks and Teacher’s Books and I knew then that I had found something that I really enjoyed. From there it was an obvious move into publishing when I returned to the UK, and I’ve never looked back. Having worked my way from Editor to Publishing Manager in jobs with Richmond, Prentice Hall, Burlington Books and Macmillan, I left to become a freelance editor and project manager in 2008. Since then I’ve spent my time doing everything from proofreading to managing multi-level, multi-component print and digital courses and training editors (not to mention spending a year living in a motorhome, driving round the entire coast of Australia). Starting ELT Teacher 2 Writer with Karen and Sue, and watching it develop, has added another dimension to my work, and one I thoroughly enjoy.
Karen Spiller
I studied French and Spanish at university, then moved to Spain and taught in Madrid. I joined OUP as a rep and spent my early 20s racing round the country promoting the OUP list. Anyone remember Access to English and Streamline? I then worked as a Field editor for Heinemann in Madrid before moving back to the UK, with Heinemann (later Macmillan), as the Publisher responsible for Spain and the general adult list where I had the good fortune to work with many talented authors, including Sue on Inside Out. In 2000 I moved to Paris and worked for Hachette Livre as Director of International Development and was involved in opening up new markets for their educational and children’s publishing. I reconnected with my ELT roots in 2003 when I came back to Oxford to set up my ELT commissioning and development company. Recent titles I’ve commissioned (for National Geographic Learning) include Life (two editions), Keynote (a TED-based course), Outcomes (2e), Perspectives and Look. I’m also the co-founder of ELT Publishing Professionals. I love working on T2W with Karen and Sue because they’re the best in the business!
