PLEASE GIVE TO HELP SAVE THE COTTAGE
The trust is very pleased to have an advisory committee of American friends who work with the trust board to increase awareness of Blake Cottage in the United States and to raise funds for the restoration of the cottage and the building of a Blake centre:
Daniel N Birnbaum is a playwright, poet, musician, and producer with a range of artist-centered programs to his credit. He’s also served as director of a nonprofit visual arts organization, worked for public agencies and foundations, and consulted on organizational strategy for the arts. Daniel is currently honored to serve as poet in residence with Jacob Jonas The Company, a Santa Monica-based dance company, where he writes and performs poetry as an integrated component of dance events.
Mark Crosby, FSA received his DPhil from the University of Oxford and is currently Professor of English and the Director of the Digital Humanities Center at Kansas State University. He has edited an edition of Blake’s Songs of Innocence (Bodleian 2024), and co-authored, with Robert N. Essick, the first critical edition of William Blake’s Genesis Manuscript (2012). Mark also co-edited Re-envisioning Blake (Palgrave 2012), William Blake’s Manuscripts: Praxis, Puzzles, and Palimpsests (Palgrave 2024) and William Hayley: A Biographer's Influence on Life Writing and Romantic Networks during the Long Eighteenth Century (Palgrave 2025). His earliest research was a reconstruction of Blake's cottage in Felpham and his most recent work includes the discovery of Blake’s earliest engraved art and the hanging arrangement of the 18 portraits of poets that Blake worked on during his time in Felpham.
Melanie Roher is a graphic designer and fine artist. She has worked as an exhibit designer on the staff at NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, has designed exhibitions and graphics for The National Gallery of Art, The Museum at Eldridge Street, among others. She was a designer for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum at its inception. Melanie has owned her own design firm in New York for three decades. Her paintings have been shown at many galleries in the NY area.
Stephen Schwartz is an Emmy Award winner and multiple Emmy nominated director, creator and producer of unscripted, “reality” and documentary television programming. Steve has served in executive roles at multiple television networks, and has his own production company, New Harbor Entertainment.