Gwen Ansell is a freelance writer, researcher and trainer. She writes about jazz (for her blog The Conversation, the Financial Mail, M&G Friday, new pro-struggle, pro-working class online newspaper New Frame – and more) and reviews books – mainly science fiction & fantasy (these reviews have appeared in the Johannesburg Mail&Guardian and the Chimurenga Chronic, among others). As a Research Associate of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, she has researched and published on jazz and music policy in the creative and cultural industries sector. She trains journalists and academic and organisational writers and consults on music industry policy, organisational communication and training policies as well as curriculum design.
A former Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University, she is the author of Soweto Blues: Jazz, Politics and Popular Music in South Africa and the textbook Introduction to Journalism,, as well as various book chapters and journal articles. Watch out for her chapter on jazz in Johannesburg in the forthcoming second volume of Sounds and the City.