Student profiles

Annette Brook

Annette has loved theatre and live performance since childhood and decided aged 17 to pursue a career behind the scenes. She completed BA(Hons) English at Goldsmiths in 2003 having revelled in the structured yet creative approach. After a year ‘at the coal face’ as a Graduate Trainee at the dance conservatoire Laban Annette was keen to learn more. A highlight of the MA was that it allowed her to come face to face with arts practitioners. As a group she visited arts organisations to understand what it meant to work in the industry.

Annette enjoyed the cultural policy aspect of the course the most – questions such as ‘do the arts matter?’ still continue to fascinate her and are ever more relevant in light of the recent Arts Council funding decisions.

After graduating in 2006, Annette worked as Admin Assistant at Artsadmin and then as Dance Administrator at Arts Council England, London. She currently works for Spread the Word, London’s leading writer development organisation. She joined in 2008 as Administrator and was promoted to Programme Coorindator later that year. Skills that she developed whilst on MA work placement (with Jonathan Meth’s Writernet) including how to work in a small team have proven very useful. Grappling with administration as well as policy has come into play in all of Annette’s roles since graduating and she is confident that her MA will continue to serve her for years to come.