Studio leads
Jess Rose
Writer, Co-creation Facilitator and Communication Strategist (and Marine Studios lead)
Jess has been creating and delivering communications strategies for health organisations, corporates, social enterprises, national charities and media for 20 years. An expert copywriter and co-creation facilitator, she also specialises in messaging and outreach. She works closely with photographers, videographers, writers and designers to produce high quality content that tells compelling stories. She is a poet and literary copy-editor and a founding member of Poets for the Planet. A champion of Thanet’s creative community, she co-leads the Writers’ Room at Marine Studios. She campaigns nationally and locally on social and environmental issues and leads the Plastic Free Thanet campaign.
Anthony Rendall-Davis
Visual Merchandising, Creative and Styling Consultant (and Marine Studios lead)
Anthony is a freelance Visual Merchandising, Creative and Styling Consultant with over 25 years experience in the retail industry. He works closely with HOL Group as their Creative Director, and along with his Husband, Jonny Davis, has a Visual Merchandising and Retail consultancy. His VM experience includes window and store design, mannequin design, retail and window styling, press days, photoshoot styling and training and development. He also has experience in Graphic Design, Brand Development and Marketing. Anthony is also a co-lead of Marine Studios and First Friday in Margate.
Connor Sansby
Poet, Author, Editor-in-Chief for Whisky & Beards Publishing and Co-Director of Kent Poetry CIC (and Marine Studios lead)
Connor has performed across the South East, been nominated for three Saboteur Awards and has been shortlisted for the DYSPLA Storymakers Residency. He is currently preparing his second collection “Where the Land Forgets Itself”. Through Kent Poetry CIC, supports the literary sector in the county through professional development, fundraising and event production. Connor is part of the Studios Leads team, and can be found in The Writers’ Room with headphones on, joyfully writing funding bids.
Dan Thompson
Artist and writer (and Marine Studios lead)
mrdanthompson.wordpress.com / @danthompson33
Dan is an artist and writer who makes work about ordinary people, everyday life, and overlooked places. He likes finding exceptional stories in unremarkable locations.
His work has been commissioned by clients including Tate Exchange, Unilever, Frequency Festival, Turner Contemporary, Estuary Festival, Smirnoff, and Dreamland. He is on the board of Talking Birds, Coventry and is an associate of B arts, Stoke.
Dan is the author of bestseller Pop Up Business For Dummies, and histories of Dreamland and Turner Contemporary.
Writers’ Room
Eleanor Dangerfield
Artist, Writer and Campaigner
Ellie is an artist, writer and campaigner based in Thanet. She works as a Campaign Lead for Plastic Free Thanet, and freelance graphic designer and content producer. Ellie has co-created local campaigns – The Margate Cup and #ChooseToReuse to improve local sustainability. She works collaboratively with businesses, offering consultation on social and environmental sustainability. Drawing on her background in social anthropology, her creative work explores themes around the human-environment nexus, queer ecology, relationality and the body, through writing, film and material projects.
Jenny Duff
Designer-maker
jennyduff.co.uk / @jennyduffmats
brighterdaysmarkets.co.uk / @brighterdaysmarkets
Jenny is a designer-maker based in Margate and Broadstairs producing modern, fresh and attractive tableware which is sold around the world. As founder of Brighter Days, Jenny runs a series of successful retail events for quality designers, makers and artisans. Her management, marketing and communications skills are utilised to support studios, galleries and festivals; including for Margate NOW, the multidisciplinary arts festival in Margate, working with over 70 artists during Turner Prize at Turner Contemporary. Jenny’s artistic practice is in textiles and she uses her space at Marine to stitch and weave stories. She has exhibited nationally and internationally.
Dr Kat Lewis
Writer
Kat is a writer, researcher and facilitator with a particular interest in the use of storytelling to process trauma. Her projects include work supporting resettled migrants with creative sessions, being commissioned by charities to measure impact with analytic reports, manuscript consultation for authors and contracts with academic institutions as an associate researcher.
Pilot Goose, Dog
Pilot is an Australian Shepherd who belongs to a boy called W. His duties include but are not limited to; sleeping outside W’s bedroom to make sure monsters don’t get in, standing in front of W if other dogs or bigger kids come along, reminding everyone to get W from school, tasting W’s snacks to make sure they’re not poisoned, being the biggest dinosaur in all W’s dinosaur games, being a cushion for when W’s watching cartoons, listening to W’s stories and keeping W’s secrets. In Pilot’s spare time, he likes to come to Marine Studios with Kat, to nap and have cuddles.
Ed Garvey-Long
Career and Wellbeing Coach, Poet and Sewer
Poetry: @eddus_poet
Coaching: ed_wellbeing
Ed is a Career and Wellbeing Coach who works with clients experiencing career change and career uncertainty. Ed supports clients with exploring their work or life situation with a non-judgemental approach and supports clients to make practical and positive changes across sessions. Ed is also a poet who published his debit pamphlet, The Living Museum in 2019. Ed holds a Masters in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths and alongside writing poetry, he writes non-fiction about wellbeing and Margate life on his website. Ed is also an avid sewer and creates entirely hand sewn quilts using the traditional English paper piecing method.
Desk Holders
Rachel Mills
Writer and editor (and part-time Marine Studios Assistant)
aboutme/rachmillstravel / @rachmillstravel
Rachel is Marine Studios’ part-time assistant, supporting the day-to-day running of the workspace and meeting rooms, as well as working across socials and content. When she’s not working for Marine Studios, Rachel’s a freelance travel writer and book editor – so she’s super excited about the writers’ room. An expert in slow travel and sustainable tourism, Rachel was a senior editor at Rough Guides and co-author of Rough Guides and DK guidebooks to New Zealand, India, Canada, Ireland and Great Britain. As well as regular commercial copywriting gigs (Expedia, Marriott, Byway, Jacada…), she writes for The Independent, Sunday Times, Telegraph Travel and Scotland Magazine.
Poppy Cockburn
Content editor, poet and photographer
Poppy is a communications and PR strategist with ten years’ experience working across visual art, music and placemaking for cultural institutions from the Serpentine to the Barbican. She’s currently Content Editor at creative agency Creative Blood. On the side, she writes poems about psychology in the social media age, and she keeps a photo diary of the Margate sky (see her website).
Carol Cooper
Features Editor, playwright and producer
Carol is Features Editor for shots.net, an online magazine dedicated to creativity in the advertising space. With a specific focus on film, shots curates the world’s best campaigns and offers insight into the craft of and inspiration behind ads, music videos and branded content. Carol is also a playwright and producer, her recent hits being: The Crabaret, at Margate’s Crab Museum, which included her play about crab sex, Crabsolutely Fabulous; a future-themed evening of entertainment at Roslyn Court called CabarAI; and Twisted Sisters (part of POW) at the Sarah Thorne Theatre, Broadstairs.
Elliot Tagg
Producer, Tagg Team
vimeo.com/elliotttagg / @elliotttagg
Elliott finds the right people, and the right stuff, to make all forms of moving image for brands, like telly ads or premium content. He especially likes the big budget, complex, technical stuff. Which makes getting the right people together even more important. Maybe that’s why his company is called Tagg Team. Or perhaps it’s just his name.
Tom Polson
Manufacturing facility designer
Tom is a food manufacturing facility designer based in Margate. Tom is passionate about sustainability in the food sector, and is driven to integrate permaculture and circular economy design principles into industrial food systems.
Tanya Royer
Communications and engagement professional
Tanya is a skilled, creative and energetic communications and engagement professional living in Margate. She has over twenty years’ experience handling everything from sensitive media relations to system-level transformation communications. She is currently working with the Health Foundation Q Community as part of the editorial team to strengthen understanding of quality improvement approaches across the health and social care landscape in the post-pandemic era.
Rachel Seoighe
Academic, author and one half of Hearth Consultancy
hearthconsultancy.org / kent.ac.uk
Rachel is an academic and one half of Hearth Consultancy, an organisation that supports social justice organisations (and organisations across sectors) with research and research design. Working from a feminist, abolitionist and queer perspective, her research projects and educational workshops tend to respond to state violence and marginalisation and enhance community capacity and connection. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent and is the author of various articles and book chapters, as well as the book War, Denial and Nation-Building in Sri Lanka: After the End.
James Vigar
Graphic designer and consultant
James is a graphic designer and consultant with over 20 years commercial experience and has worked across branding, advertising, exhibition, web and print design. Clients include specialised small companies, public sector and corporates. He’s picked up a thing or two along the way. In his spare time he enjoys playing table tennis, is an aspiring Swingball pro, loves listening to Southern Rock and most of all playing games and spending time with his family.
Steph Wilson
Content Designer, Cornerstone Content Limited
LinkedIn
Steph is a content design consultant who works with local and national government organisations to help them create user-friendly and accessible content online. Steph has been in the industry for 10 years and has worked on a wide range of government services, such as applying for a visa and learning how to drive. Steph has worked for Defra, the Government Digital Service, the Prime Minister’s Office and is now currently working with councils across the country. Steph lives in Margate with her partner and Border Terrier, Pat the Scruff.
Stu McAlpine
Software Engineer, Pressing Space
Stu works with businesses, marketing agencies and branding agencies to build things for the web. Most of the time – but not all of the time – that thing is a website. Usually it’s built with WordPress. Occasionally it’s something more exciting such as an installation or a game. He has design experience, but specialises in writing code in various programming languages. His most successful projects include the McDonald’s Monopoly website and the award-winning Royal Marines Green Ops web game. Stu loves to spend his free time making noise music with synths and sequencers.