Random things about me

Why an editor or content producer should commission me

Because I’m awake at night fretting about whether my piece is engaging, accessible, balanced, well-researched, observational and ethical, with just the right tone of voice. Which always means it is. Bingo.

Why an editor should commission someone who’s not all that well-travelled

My USP is that I’m the least well-travelled travel features writer there is. That’s partly because, pre writing-days, the annual holiday budget always came with a significant ceiling and partly because there’s an inexhaustible supply of sparky stuff to write about on/near home turf.

Where’s next

If any travel editors are reading this, they need to know that I definitely don’t want to be sent on a field trip to the Camargue, Bilbao, Dublin, New Lanark or The Netherlands. And that’s a definite. Definitely.

By-lines

On the editorial side, I write frequently for: The Independent, Waitrose Weekend and France Magazine and I also have by-lines in Times Travel, Coast Magazine, Maverick, Cornwall Life Magazine, LivingEtc, etc. On the translation/transcreation side, I write digital content for Hauts-de-France Tourisme and Calvados Tourisme. I also sub-edit and proofread each issue of Juno Magazine, a gorgeous publication that covers community, wellbeing and a natural approach to parenting.

People and place

I’ve always been drawn to the intertwining of place and the lives once lived there, so I spontaneously combust when I walk into a museum and am confronted with evocative photographs of regular people from the past. There’s a giant photographic mural of a docker in The Museum of Liverpool that I could stare at all day, the whole story of the city pulsating in his expression alone. I like to think I write off the back of sharp observation and emotional intelligence.

Headspace

Reading. Walking. Overthinking. Eavesdropping. Baths.

I’m currently writing…

… history, the arts, museums, charities, books, and any kind of human-centred storytelling. I’m also holding on to an ambition to write a coffee-table book about the coast - but with a twist. I hope to pique publishers’ curiosity on that real soon.