Kim-lin Hooper currently divides her time between writing and working in the arts and education sectors. She is working on a novel imagining British-born Caribbean people’s involvement in jazz and the black musical theatre of the 1920s, set in London and Berlin.
Kim-lin worked for many years in theatres and arts centres, in marketing, education and audience development. During a five year stint as Reading Borough Council’s Arts and Education Development Officer, she wrote the Borough’s Arts and Education strategy, organised Reading’s first joint arts and education conference, supported schools with applying for Artsmark and working with external partners and set up and sourced funding for a programme of creative action research projects between schools and external partners. She ran Reading Young Reviewers’ Project promoting young people’s involvement in their local arts scene, and set up earweb (Education and Arts in Reading website), a resource of advice sheets, project examples, contacts and news to support teachers’ and creative organistions’ involvement in partnership projects.
Having completed an MA in Creative Writing, Kim-lin is also developing a practise as a creative writing tutor, which she hopes to bring into creative projects with children and young people. She also sings folk and jazz, and wrote and sung a ballad for Beautiful Creatures Theatre Company’s show The Will of the Wisp at South Street in December 2007.
