Journalist
After completing my Master’s Degree in Modern English Literature in 1989 (my dissertation was about how Marilyn Monroe’s story was used after her death in 1962), I worked as a freelance journalist. I specialised in design - particularly in relation to the leisure, hospitality and retail sectors - for a range of publications including: Design Week, Retail Design FX and Restaurant Magazine. I also wrote for The Times and The Guardian.
Writer
As a journalist and as a teacher, writing has always been at the heart of what I do. Currently I am focussing on writing scripts that are based (more or less) on actual events. As a journalist it satisfies my fascination with the real world while also finding ways into past times and places through my imagination.
Wake the Last Saxon: A feature film based on the events of the last Saxon uprising led by Hereward the Wake against the Norman invasion. It has been well received by readers and is currently with a producer.
Touched: (with Kate Grey) written for the 2009 Cinema Extreme competition. The story concerns a learning disabled boy going to Amsterdam with his carer to have sex. The story was loosely based on a proposition put to me when I worked with the learning disabled.
Hitched: is about two Taiwanese girls who are hitch-hiking and accept a lift from two men in a car. It uses a mixture of still and moving images and is a take on 70’s kung fu movies.
Staying Away: A social history of hotels in the UK. This is to be a documentary intended to be a three part TV series. This is still in the research and development stages but will draw on my nearly twenty years of writing about this industry.
Dancer: An action adventure set in England during the 17th century
Teacher
Since 2004 I have worked as a Literacy Teacher. Client groups include: learning disabled, who wanted to access the Internet; managers and staff of children’s homes who needed help with effective report writing skills and 16 to 19 year olds who had previously been unable to access education. I currently teach Creative Writing to people over the age of 50.