Brief biography
Originally a carnival artist for Notting Hill Carnival Dominique moved to Trinidad to spend three years working for the Trinidad carnival. Inspired by the small island with a big literary reputation she started writing. Co-author of the Rough Guide to Trinidad and Tobago and contributor to a variety of Caribbean magazines she returned to England to complete the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her work features marginalised people, those who society forget or ignore; the cleaners, the immigrants & the down trodden.Tired of working in isolation, Dominique ran the Brighton Big Issue Writing Group for four years, guiding homeless writers to publication. As a result she was appointed writer in residence in 2005 at the First Base Day Centre, a place of safety for homeless and vulnerable adults run by Brighton Housing Trust. The year was more successful than she could have imagined. Two hundred and fifty day centre clients took part in her workshops, earning them over £2000 in publication fees. Three writers went on to have their work commissioned by BBC Southern
Counties. Dominique was inspired. Why
write about marginalised people when marginalised people could write
about themselves given the right support and encouragement?With the backing of Brighton Housing Trust, Dominique submitted a bid to the Arts Council for funding for a three year arts project at the day centre. It was successful. Dominique now project manages creative activites three days a week at the day centre, supervising ten artists and four volunteers. In the first year particpants earned approximately �4,000 in fees for their work. As a result of requests from other services, Dominique established Creative Futures with Simon Powell in 2006. This not for profit organisation trains and promotes marginalised artists and writers in the south east of England. She also teaches at other organisations, is a Lapidus mentor for those who wish to run therapeutic writing groups and takes photographs in her spare time. She is currently working on a novel.
Dominique is a published writer, qualified adult education teacher and trained Lapidus mentor. See her CV for further information. She is also on the board of Brighton Carnival and Queenspark Publishing Management Committee.
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