emagazine A Level English Literature Student Conference
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Date - 13 Nov 2025 (UK)
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Availability -
Places available
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Price - £25 per student
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Location - Friends House, London
Please see the points under ‘Make sure you are ready to book’. It includes useful information on the sort of account you need to be signed into, the 20% non-refundable deposit and when the school will be invoiced for the balance payment.
Booking enquires
General booking enquires:
Email us
Programme enquiries:
Email Andrew
The conference will begin at 10.20am and finish by 3.30pm.
10.25am – Andrew McCallum: Welcome
10.30-11.10am – Professor Emma Smith: Was Shakespeare a Feminist?
This talk will consider the attitudes to gender roles in Shakespeare’s plays, considering how history, genre, and questions of authorial biography might offer relevant frameworks for analysis. Then we’ll ask about the implications of anachronistic reading – how far are our modern standards appropriate when studying Shakespeare?
11.10-11.50am – Professor John Mullan: Novels and Endings
What is revealed about novels by their endings? How does the ending of a novel artfully satisfy (or sometimes thwart) the reader’s expectations? How is the experience of reading a novel shaped by how we think it might end? This talk will try to answer these questions, and to show how a novel cannot be truly appreciated until you have reached the end of it.
11.50am-12.20pm – BREAK
12.20-1.10pm – The Relevance of Literature
Panel chaired by Professor John Mullan, with Declan Lawn (screenwriter of Blue Lights), Aida Edemariam (journalist and author), Kerry Lagan
This session will explore how literature (and a literature degree) has played a vital role in the professional and personal lives of the panelists.
1.10pm-2pm – LUNCH
2-2.50pm – Sarah Crown and Victoria Adukwei Bulley: How to Approach Poetry
Close reading by Sarah Crown, followed by conversation with Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Sarah Crown offers a close reading of a poem selected by prize-winning poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley, before discussing the poem and others further with Victoria.
2.50-3.30pm – Andy Miller: The Very Angry Caterpillar – Unleash the Power of Your Inner Bookworm
Writer and broadcaster Andy Miller has spent a lifetime with his nose in a book, but he regrets NOTHING. With his favourite pastime under threat, Andy offers an impassioned and amusing tour of his own reading life, from The Tiger Who Came to Tea to the Harry Potter novels to The Catcher in the Rye, and beyond. It's a talk designed to inspire budding bibliophiles and to persuade everyone else that books still matter – and always will.
3.30pm – Andrew McCallum: Closing Comments
Getting to the Conference
Train
- The closest train stations are Euston, London St Pancras and Kings Cross.
Tube (underground)
- Tube stations within a 5 to 15-minute walk include: Euston, Euston Square, Kings Cross, Goodge Street, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road and Warren Street. The closest tubes are Euston and Euston Square.
Bus
- Numbers 10, 18, 30, 73, 205 and 390 pass the door whilst 59, 68, 91, 168, and 253 stop nearby.
Travelling by Minibus or Car?
- Friends House is within a meter parking zone. Charges must be paid Monday to Friday 08:30 -18:30. Please note that Friends House is within the congestion charge zone. For details of how to pay here.
Coaches
- Coaches may stop outside Friends House to drop students off.
Parking
- There is no on-site parking available at Friends House. The local roads have metered parking bays and fall within TfL charging zones. TFL driving information is available on the TFL website. There are three disabled blue badge parking bays located in Endsleigh Gardens.Information about Camden Council parking is available on the Council's website.
Risk Assessment
We are unable to provide a risk assessment for your students, but are very happy to answer any questions you might have about the venue which would help you in completing your own risk assessment.
Arrangements on the Day
Registration
Registration will open at 9.30am and we ask you to be in your seats for 10am so we can begin promptly at 10.20am.
Entrance is via the Euston Road entrance to Friends House.
Teachers Accompanying Students
We expect all students to be accompanied by a teacher. There should be a minimum of 1 teacher per 20 students.
We request that teachers meet their students in advance, register as a group and sit with their groups of students. Teachers are responsible for ensuring that their own students maintain acceptable standards of behaviour in the auditorium and in the Friends House building.
Lunch and Refreshments
The cafe at Friends House is open from 8am.
You and your students will be responsible for providing your own lunches. There are sandwich shops in the area immediately behind Friends House and plenty of food outlets across the road at Euston Station.
There are spaces outside for students to eat their packed lunch but no indoor spaces.
Andrew McCallum
Andrew McCallum is Director of the English and Media Centre. Prior to that he ran a PGCE course in secondary English, and previously he taught for 15 years in London schools, spending most of that time at Acland Burghley School in Camden. He holds a doctorate in education, is author of Creativity and Learning in Secondary English (Routledge) and writes regularly for NATE's Teaching English magazine. If asked to name the EMC publication he's most proud of having worked on, it would be a three-way contest between Iridescent Adolescent, Diverse Shorts and Write On.
Professor Emma Smith
Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College Oxford. She is the author of This Is Shakespeare and numerous articles for emagazine.
Professor John Mullan
John Mullan is Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. His books include What Matters in Jane Austen? (2012) and, most recently, The Artful Dickens (2020). He is also a broadcaster and journalist, writing on contemporary fiction for the Guardian. He is the author of How Novels Work and in 2009 was one of the judges for the Man Booker Prize.
Declan Lawn
Declan Lawn is a screenwriter and director working in film and television. His credits include The Salisbury Poisonings (BBC), Rogue Agent (Netflix) and the BAFTA-winning drama Blue Lights (BBC). Before moving into television drama, he spent sixteen years as an investigative journalist with the BBC, working mainly on the flagship current affairs show Panorama.
He studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1999.
Aida Edemariam
Aida Edemariam is a senior feature writer and editor at the Guardian. Her first book, The Wife’s Tale, was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award in Canada and an Arts Futures Award in the UK, and won both a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award and the 2019 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. She has also judged various prizes, including the International Booker Prize, the David Cohen Prize for Literature (for lifetime achievement), the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-fiction, and the 2024 Press Awards.
Kerry Lagan
Kerry Lagan spends her time travelling across Europe, advising global powerhouses like Amazon and Nike on their AI strategy. Little did she know that this is where her English Literature degree would take her! She started out by studying English Literature at Newcastle University, before moving to London to complete a Master's in Book Publishing. After honing her expertise at top publishers Little Brown and Pan Macmillan, she took a bold step into the thriving tech scene. Now, she works for AI company DeepL and partners with leading businesses to help them adopt new technology and expand globally.
Sarah Crown
Sarah Crown is Director of Literature at the Arts Council England. She edited the Guardian's books website for many years, and regularly reviews fiction and poetry for the Guardian, the Telegraph and the TLS.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a poet, writer and artist. She is the winner of an Eric Gregory Award, and her critically acclaimed poetry debut, QUIET, won the Folio Prize for Poetry, the John Pollard Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. QUIET is published by Faber & Faber in the UK and in North America by Knopf, Penguin Random House.
Andy Miller
Andy Miller is a reader, author and editor of books, including The Year of Reading Dangerously. He is the co-host of Backlisted, the award-winning literary podcast that gives new life to old books. He has appeared on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read, Open Book, The Museum of Curiosity, Woman's Hour, and more. He has written for the Times, the Guardian, the Spectator, the Telegraph, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire and others.
Prices
- The fee is £25 per student, with one free teacher place as follows: 1-9 students = 1 free teacher place; 10-19 students = 2 free teacher places and so on.
- You will be automatically allocated the correct number of teacher places and will need to provide details for each teacher attending. (You can change the teachers attending, if necessary, when you tell us final numbers on Thursday 23rd October.)
- For additional teachers, or teachers attending without students, for their own interest or CPD, the charge is £50 each.
Booking the conference – important information
- Before booking, please see our updated cancellation policy.
- We are unable to take provisional bookings or reserve places. Conference places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
- To book this conference you must be signed into a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) or UK Trust/Academy – Head Office (purchasing). Trust/MAT head offices: please see 'Special information for Trusts' below.
- Bookings can only be made online. It is no longer possible to pay in full for conference places by debit or credit card via the website at the time of booking.
- Overseas schools and individuals interested in attending the conference, please email us.
How to book
- Sign in to a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) or UK Trust/Academy – Head Office (purchasing) account.
- Add the number of student places you need. Free teacher places will be allocated automatically. There is a limit of 60 places per organisation.
- Confirm you have read and agree to the updated terms & conditions.
- Add the names and contact details of the teachers attending – if you don't know these details yet, just copy/paste the details of the lead teacher.
- Checkout within 24 minutes. Otherwise the booking will expire and you will have to begin the process again.
- Click submit and then Go to basket.
- 'Places exceeded' message? Reasons for this message are:
- You are trying to order more than 60 places (including free teacher places)
- Due to the number of places in other customers’ baskets, there are currently insufficient places available to fulfil this order. Try again later.
- Checkout.
- Once you have booked your place, you will see a screen indicating your order has been successful. Please make a note of your order number.
- The person making the booking and all the teachers attending will also receive an automatic acknowledgement of your booking.
- A non-refundable deposit invoice of 20% of the booking value will be emailed to you within 24 hours of booking. It must be paid by debit or credit card within 7 days of receipt. Failure to pay this invoice will result in the cancellation of the booking.
- Please do not make final travel arrangements until you have paid your deposit invoice.
Special information For Trusts
- Are you a Trust finance officer looking to book conference places for more than one of your schools?
- Please note: the limit of 60 places per organisation applies to the organisation booking the places.
- If you require more than 60 places in total, you will need to do one of the following.
Option 1 (recommended)
Finance officers or heads of English register a UK Educator Admin (purchasing) account to the school and place the order. At billing they will have the option to enter the name and email address of the finance officer at the Trust. The address on the invoice will be that of the school.
Option 2
Finance officers at the Trust head office register separate UK Educator Admin (purchasing) accounts to each school requiring places. They place each order when logged into the individual school account. A different email will be required for each registration.
Deposit
- A 20% non-refundable deposit will be applied to all places booked. If you cancel a place you will lose the 20% deposit paid. You will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards the final invoice.
- You will receive a non-refundable deposit invoice of 20% of the booking value, to be paid by credit card within 7 days of receipt. The payment can ONLY be paid via the Stripe link sent with the deposit invoice, not by making a payment directly via our website. Failure to pay this invoice will result in the cancellation of the booking.
- The balance invoice will be sent after the deadline for confirming final numbers (approximately 14 days before the conference takes place).Cancellations and Amendments
- The 20% deposit on places booked is non-refundable. Please note: you will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards the final invoice.
- You can make amendments to your booking until the final numbers deadline – 5pm on Thursday 23rd October. You will lose the 20% deposit paid on places cancelled by this deadline.
- You will be invoiced for the balance of the total fee (80%) on confirmed places. Please note: you will not be able to use the 20% deposit paid on cancelled places towards this final invoice.
- After this date you will be charged 100% of the ticket price, regardless of the numbers of students you bring to the conference.
- We will email on Monday 20th October to remind you to confirm your final numbers.
- The invoice for the balance of your conference booking will be sent after the deadline for confirming final numbers (approximately 14 days before the conference takes place). It will come from [email protected] Further correspondence related to payment will come from [email protected]
Please note: We will be unable to make refunds in the case of weather, transport difficulties or circumstances beyond our control. Should EMC need to cancel the conference, a full refund will be on offer. (However, personal arrangements including travel, accommodation or hospitality relating to the conference which have been arranged by you or your institution are at your own risk and not refundable by us.)
Waiting list
- We are no longer operating a waiting list for student conferences.
- If places become available, we will re-open the bookings on the website. We will publicise this via social media and our general mailing list.