TLC Advisory Board
TLC is grateful for the expertise, support, and championing of our highly experienced Advisors, who support TLC’s strategic business planning.
Roshni Beeharry
Roshni is a published writer and a passionate advocate of Creative Health. She is a Medical Educator (MA Clinical Education, IOE) and previously worked as an NHS Consultant in Neurological Rehabilitation Medicine. She holds an MA in Creative Writing & Personal Development (Sussex University), and is a freelance Writing for Wellbeing and Personal Development Facilitator via Storied Selves, providing workshops for the public, those with health conditions, healthcare staff and students. Roshni has been a poetry reviewer for peer-reviewed international health journal, Families, Systems and Health, since 2017, and Creative Writing for Wellbeing tutor for London based charity, Open Age, working with carers over 50, since 2022. A chapter on using poetry and writing in healthcare settings by Roshni was published in Poetry projects to make and do, edited by Deborah Alma (Nine Arches Press, 2023). In Summer 2024, she will join the arts practitioner team at Imperial Health Charity to facilitate writing workshops for both patients undergoing neurological rehabilitation and staff across associated NHS trusts.
Roshni’s areas of expertise: creative health, wellbeing, writing for personal development
Emily Grabham
Emily is a queer writer and academic with a particular interest in collaborative, arts-based research on/for social justice. She is a Professor of Law at the University of Kent and a recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2020) for her research on how concepts of time shape legal approaches to equality. Emily has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Her non-fiction has been published in the Dublin Review and her short fiction has been listed for several prizes.
Emily’s key areas of expertise: academic partnerships, social justice research, fiction, creative non fiction
Anna Korving
Anna Korving is an entrepreneur and senior business communications leader who has led businesses and teams across the PR, medical communications and healthcare advertising space in London and New York. In 2001 she co-founded and built a multiple award-winning group of agencies which was acquired in 2010 by the media holding company Publicis Groupe. Since 2018 she has been working as an NED/Board Advisor to a number of businesses and senior leaders within the communications agency space. Anna also writes women’s fiction and her work has been longlisted in several creative writing competitions including the Blue Pencil First Novel Award, the Primadonna Prize and the Yeovil Novel Prize.
Anna’s key areas of expertise: leadership, business & management strategy, communications and marketing
Elise Valmorbida
Before her career as an author, Elise Valmorbida worked as a designer, then creative director, at international London-based brand agencies. Elise left full-time corporate employment to launch her first novel and set up communications consultancy word-design. She continues to balance commercial client work with writing and teaching work. She has published journalism, poetry, short stories, three non-fiction books and four novels including The Madonna of the Mountains (Faber), which was translated into several languages and won Australia’s biggest literary award in 2019. Her most recent non-fiction is The Happy Writing Book (Hachette), a guide inspired by her 20+ years of experience as writer-teacher, and the firm belief that creative writing is a life-enhancing practice. Elise teaches with Central Saint Martins, Arvon, Faber Academy, Guardian Masterclasses, literary festivals and community-building organisations. She has served as D&AD Jury President (Writing for Design), and External Examiner for the MA in Professional Writing at Falmouth University. For her roles as indie film producer, script consultant and author, Elise won an Edinburgh International Film Festival Trailblazer award
Elise’s key areas of expertise: fiction, non-fiction, teaching, branding/communications
Tim Stretton
Tim worked for almost thirty years in local government, including five years as deputy chief finance officer at West Sussex County Council. He wrote fiction alongside the day job throughout his working life, and in 2019 left his finance career to become a full-time writer. His seven novels cover the fantasy and crime genres, and he has been published by Macmillan New Writing and SpellBound Books, as well as having extensive self-publication experience. He has also written non-fiction on introversion and local government finance.
Tim’s key areas of expertise: financial planning, financial management, risk management, training and development, leadership, writing fiction
Aruna Vasudevan
Aruna Vasudevan is an editor and writer. A former publisher and commissioning editor, she set up The Literary Shed in 2013 to work independently with UK- and US-based publishers and writers on fiction and non-fiction. Her clients include Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion, Hodder & Stoughton, Bloomsbury and Virago. She is the author of several books, published under pseudonyms, and has ghostwritten celebrity biography. She writes on a range of subjects, including the arts, literature, film, food and travel. Aruna is a strong advocate of emerging writers and holds workshops to encourage and support new writing.
Aruna’s key areas of expertise: editing, training, small business management
Dr Helen Cosis Brown
Helen Cosis Brown was TLC co-Founder Rebecca Swift’s partner. She was a Professor of Social Work at the University of Bedfordshire until 2018, and now chairs a local authority adoption and fostering panel, and is the agency decision maker for two independent fostering agencies. Her research and publications are in the field of adoption and fostering. She worked as a social worker, and a social work manager, in inner London before moving into social work education. She managed social work programmes at the University of Hertfordshire, South Bank University and Middlesex University. She has been a non-executive director of the Albert Kennedy Trust, and the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit, and currently sits on the CoramBAAF Publications Advisory Group
Helen’s key areas of expertise: review, evaluation, research
TLC would like to thank previous Advisors for their invaluable support over the years. Particular thanks are due to: Julia Forster, Rakhee Jasani, Peter McKay, Jacob Ross, Professor Alison Baverstock, Virginia Barry, Nick McMahon, Tom Wilcox, Craig Pollard.