Dr. Vanessa Dodd is a writer, theatre director, drama practitioner and actor who trained initially at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London. She has had a lifelong interest in philosophy, particularly in the early Romantic philosophers and American transcendentalists and more recently in consciousness studies. She was formerly a senior lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of South Wales and at the University of Wales, Newport, where she was also Programme Leader for the Applied Drama course.