About
Theresa (Ted) Gooda is a poet, playwright, ghostwriter and former English and Drama teacher. She lives in West Sussex and is deeply involved in the local literary scene, organising events and festivals in the south east.
She is the co-founder of BilliLit, a book festival in Billingshurst, and of The Foraging Pigs, a monthly open mic poetry night. She co-ordinated the 2025 Farnham Literary Festival and was chair of West Sussex Writers from 2023-2025. She is also a director of the Shelley Memorial Project.
Her verse drama Mannequim was performed as part of the 2025 Brighton Fringe Festival. Her recent microhistory, The Misses Beck of Billingshurst, written with historian Caroline Newell, highlights the lives and suffrage work of two notable local women. Her debut poetry pamphlet Silence & Selvedge came out in 2024. She wrote the libretto for Beware the Mackerel Sky, a folk opera produced by Bernardi Music Group, in 2023. Her play Beck & Calling was produced in 2023 and the script was published in 2025. She has ghost-written more than 20 memoirs, including a Sunday-Times bestselling series.
Dr Gooda holds a PhD from the University of Sussex, with research focusing on reading pedagogy in secondary schools. She is an editor at the National Writing Project (UK) and has published several papers related to secondary English teaching.