BA Hons English and Study of Art

Lecturer, Film Studies, Writing and Journalism


Email: toby.venables@anglia.ac.uk

Toby Venables is a freelance writer, screenwriter and editorial consultant, who regularly works in the areas of ad copywriting and PR, teaches film and journalism at degree level in Cambridge and is a BFI Associate Tutor.

He has been involved in publishing since 1997, having been Editor and Creative Director of adhoc publishing ltd (overseeing weekly publications in Cambridge, Oxford and Bristol) and Editor, Creative Director and co-founder of RealCity magazine. For both companies he assembled and managed the editorial teams and wrote several hundred reviews and features, specialising in film coverage, as well as creating ads for radio and print. He has conducted interviews with a wide range of subjects, including Cate Blanchett, Patrice Chereau, Eddie Izzard, David Gordon Green, Ray Harryhausen, Peter Greenaway, Nicolas Winding Refn, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey.

In recent years he has been represented by MBA Literary Agents, producing scripts for TV and film, including Marlowe:Black (a supernatural TV drama), Northmen (a historical re-enactment comedy drama) and Black Dog (a horror feature). He is currently working on a feature script for Starchild Pictures, and his historical horror novel, The Viking Dead, was published by Abaddon Books in 2011. He also maintains a close working relationship with Cambridge Film Festival, editing the official programme and hosting Q&As with Festival guests (including, in 2008, veteran US critic Richard Schickel).

In 1999 he was a recipient of a radio advertising award, and in 2001 won the Keats-Shelley Memorial Prize for prose. He has also co-written a chapter of a book in the Speak-Write series, entitled Writing at Work, offering practical advice on journalistic and promotional writing. He is due to complete an MA in Film Studies in October 2010.


Research activity:

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