Michael Rosen

Artist Biography

Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s best loved writers and performance poets for children and adults.  His first degree in English Literature and Language was from Wadham College, Oxford and he went on to study for an MA at the University of Reading and a PhD at the former University of North London, now London Metropolitan.  He is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London where he co-devised and teaches critical approaches to reading on an MA in Children’s Literature, having done the same at Birkbeck, University of London.  He has taught on MA courses in universities since 1994. He was the Children’s Laureate from 2007-2009.

Michael is also a popular broadcaster and has presented BBC Radio 4’s acclaimed programme about language, “Word of Mouth” since 1998, including lengthy interviews with Steven Pinker, Philip Pullman, David Walliams, Malorie Blackman, Raymond Antrobus, David Crystal,  as well as regularly presenting documentary programmes for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3, including the Sony Gold Award-winning “On Saying Goodbye”, ‘Zola in Norwood’ (on Emile Zola’s exile in England) and in-depth programmes on the subjects of eg Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, the poetry of Roald Dahl, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the working methods of Cressida Cowell,  the German youth rebels in the Nazi period, the Edelweisspiraten, and memorialising the Holocaust. He is a frequent contributor to news or arts radio and TV programmes on the subject of children’s reading, poetry and literature in general.

Michael has published over 200 books for children and adults, including “The Sad Book” with Quentin Blake (Walker Books) – a meditation on bereavement written after the loss of his son, Eddie;  “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” with Helen Oxenbury  (Walker Books) – made into an animated film for Channel 4 broadcast Christmas Day 2016 –  and  “A Great Big Cuddle” with Chris Riddell (Walker Books) and most recently ‘The Missing’ a study of the fate of his father’s uncles in World War Two.  His poetry for adults includes “Don’t Mention the Children” (Smokestack) and “Selected Poems” (Penguin).  Non-fiction work for adults includes “Good Ideas: How to Be Your Child’s (and Your Own) Best Teacher” (John Murray),  “The Disappearance of Emile Zola, Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case” (Faber), and his memoir “So They Call You Pisher!” (Verso).

Michael writes a monthly open “letter” to the Secretary of State for Education in The Guardian where he critiques Government policy on schools from the standpoint of a parent. He also writes a column in the ‘New Humanist’ on language based on the history and use of words in the media. He visits schools, teachers’ conferences and university teacher training departments where he is in demand to give performances, workshops and keynote addresses. He also appears regularly at literary festivals all over the UK and Ireland including Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Dublin, Jewish Book Week  and many more. He has visited international schools and conferences in Paris, the Hague, Prague, Vienna, Milan, Chicago, Vancouver, Sidney, Montreal, Toronto and many more. He frequently gives talks on the arts in education and the history of children’s literature or related topics for such institutions as the Royal Academy, the British Library, the Royal College of Arts, the Institut Français.

He has been commissioned to do work for major national institutions such as the British Museum, Snape Maltings and collaborations with the London Sinfonia, the Bach Choir, the Barbican Arts Centre, the Wellcome Collection, Tate Modern and History Works in Cambridge on local history and Holocaust Education and Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations.

Michael has received several honorary awards, including degrees from the Open University, the University of Exeter, the University of London Institute of Education and the University of East London/Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.  For outstanding contribution to children’s literature he received the Eleanor Farjeon Award.  In recognition of his contribution to the profile of French culture in the UK, he was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Michael’s Youtube channel – “Kids’ Poems and Stories with Michael Rosen” has over 200 videos of poems and stories and interviews with writers such as Frank Cottrell Boyce, David Almond and Malorie Blackman – has had 68 million views around the world.

His website – regularly updated with news of past and future events and a regular blog on poetry-teaching ideas for teachers – is www.michaelrosen.co.uk