Chris Meade


Chris Meade is Director of if:book, the registered charity exploring the future of the book and the creative potential of new media for readers and writers. if:book works closely with the New York based  Institute for the Future of the Book. He recently completed an M.A. in Creative Writing & New Media at De Montfort University, and is a member of the FLO Literature Leaders Consortium. He writes a blog, www.bookfutures.blogspot.com and his new digital novella, www.insearchoflosttim.net was described by the Independent on Sunday as, "a jeu d'esprit and, just possibly, the future of fiction."
From 2000-2007 Chris was Executive Director of Booktrust, the national agency promoting books and reading. As part of his work at Booktrust, Chris helped secure government funding for Bookstart and other national book gifting schemes, launched the Booktrust Early Years Awards, Booktrust Teenage Prize, the STORY campaign and National Short Story Prize, and initiated Get London Reading, a citywide promotion.
As Director of the Poetry Society from 1994-2000, Chris established the Poetry Cafe at the Society's Covent Garden HQ and devised the Poetry Places scheme which received a major lottery grant to fund projects throughout the community. He was Principal Officer Arts Development & Marketing for Birmingham Library Services (1989 - 94), co-coordinator of Opening The Book (1984 - 89) with Rachel Van Riel, and ran the Opening The Book Festival in Sheffield 1989.
Chris is author of The Thoughts of Betty Spital (Penguin, 1989), winner of the 1984 George Orwell Prize for his play We Two Boys.  His cartoon strip OVERLEAF can be seen at www.misteroverleaf.blogspot.com. Chris has also been a judge of the Forward Poetry Prize (1999) and the 2005 Asham Short Story Award.