Biography

Diana Mitchener (nee Filkin) was born in Wallasey on Merseyside  in 1933.  Her childhood experiences of war-time bombing and evacuation to Shropshire with her sister are chronicled under the title ‘Despatches’ in www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. A full autobiography under this title is due out in 2010 (Corncockle Press).

After teaching English in Manchester and at a London Grammar School, Diana changed to teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) with the British Centre in Sweden and later at the English Language Centre, Brighton.  She returned to teaching after a ten-year break and eventually attained a senior lectureship in T.E.F.L. at University College, Chichester, taking an M.A. in Creative Writing in 2000.

Her short stories have been published in the Macmillan Bookshelf series, in anthologies of winning stories and most recently in the French Literary Review, 2009.

She was the winner of the Muse & Music Monologue competition (Writing and Performance category) in 2000, 2002 and was the runner-up in 2004.

In 2009 she published Ten Poems for Performance and a collection of her poetry under the title Corncockle.

Many poems in these collections have been placed in national poetry competitions and have been published in the following poetry journals and anthologies: Sussex Seams 2000, Cannon’s Mouth 2005 & 2006, Libra 2002 – 2009; Cruse Poetry Anthology: Rowing Home  2008;  Up to our Necks in it,  2009; and Roundyhouse 2009.

Now in her seventies she is involved with several poetry groups in West Sussex.  She appreciates her friends and close relationships with her family: sisters Anne and Isobel, son Daniel, daughter Sam and grand-daughter Sarah.