Conference Speakers

Dana Ferris

Dana Ferris is an Associate Professor in the University Writing Program at the University of California, Davis, USA. She is the co-author of two teacher preparation texts on L2 writing and reading (both with John Hedgcock) and the author of several other books and a number of journal articles and chapters on L2 writing. Her particular area of research interest has been response to student writing and written corrective feedback. She also serves on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Second Language Writing.

 

Donna Lee Brien

Associate Professor Donna Lee Brien holds the positions of Head, School of Arts and Creative Enterprise at Central Queensland University and Associate Professor in Creative Industries.

With an MA and PhD in Writing, both by creative work and exegesis, ahe has widely published on writing and publishing, creative non-fiction; teaching creative and professional writing; biography, autobiography and memoir writing and publishing; and collaborative practice in the arts.  

Her biography John Power 1881-1943 is the standard work on this expatriate artist and benefactor (and is in its third printing), and she is co-author of the popular self-help books Girl’s Guide to Real Estate: How to Enjoy Investing in Property and Girl’s Guide to Work and Life: How to Create the Life you Want.

She has industry experience as a project manager for private, corporate and government bodies including the Sydney Cove Authority, Powerhouse Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Power Gallery of Contemporary Art and numerous contemporary artists including Australian entrepreneur Ken Done.

Founding co-editor of dotlit: The Online Journal of Creative Writing and Assistant Editor of Imago: New Writing and Imago: Online, Donna is currently an Associate Editor of New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing (UK), and is on the Board of Readers for Writing Macao.

Donna is the President of the Australian Association of Writing Programs and in 2006 was has awarded a Carrick Institute Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.

 

JOHN BITCHENER

John Bitchener is an Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Social Sciences at AUT University. He teaches on the MA in Applied Language Studies programme and supervises a number of Masters and Doctoral theses.

He is co-editor of New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics and was formerly the editor of The TESOLANZ Journal. He is a regular reviewer for international journals like Journal of Second Language Writing, Language Teaching Research Journal, Journal of English for Academic Purposes and TESOL Quarterly.

John has published widely in areas such as the efficacy of oral and written corrective feedback, the discourse patterning of academic genres (in particular the part-genres of the thesis), and the difficulties that L1 and L2 writers experience when approaching new genres. He is currently contracted with Palgrave Macmillan for writing a book entitled ‘Writing an Applied Linguistics Thesis or Dissertation: A Content and Structure Guide’ and has under review with Routledge (Taylor and Francis) a second book (to be co-authored with Dana Ferris) entitled ‘Written Corrective Feedback in Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Writing’. Material from both projects has been presented at seminars and workshops in numerous settings, including six universities in North America, two universities in Australia, one university in Singapore and in regular postgraduate seminars at AUT University since 2003.

John is President of the Applied Linguistics Association of New Zealand (ALANZ) and serves on the International Committee of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA).