About Me

I was born in Croydon, a commuter town in Southeast London. David Bowie went to art school there but later described the town as “my nemesis”. Also as “complete concrete Hell.” 

Meanwhile, I found growing up there in the 1990s was as close as I’ve got to living in the West Village or San Francisco in the 1950s. And I’ve subsequently lived in both places in the 21st Century. So what did David Bowie know? Eh?

(Photo by Mark Crick).

I’ve always preferred people’s authentic stories to simpler, more easily digested narratives. And I’m expert at showing the importance of such nuance to journalists who don’t have time for it. 

I loved Shakespeare at school and even though I’d have loved to go to art college for sculpture, I’m cursed, I suppose, to have been most gifted as a writer. So I studied English at University, then worked briefly for a photographer before going to the London College of Printing for a postgraduate diploma in periodical journalism. 

I spent 10 years as a journalist on both sides of the Atlantic, and won a few awards for my reporting on the U.S. criminal justice system. In particular, its treatment of Black and Brown people. Likewise, juvenile detainees and those in mental health crisis. My best journalistic work was done in New Orleans.

I enjoyed interviewing Tony Bourdain, Spike Lee, and James Carville, among others. My work appeared in People Magazine, Salon.com, The Guardian, and as far afield as The Hindu Times in India and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. I did a wide range of work from restaurant and film reviews to investigative journalism on corrupt law enforcement officials, although my favorite would-be stories were often the ones we couldn’t publish for lack of sufficient corroboration.

I just loved being in newsrooms. There’s nowhere like it. 

That said, I found the drawback of being a reporter is that even if you’re right about exposing an injustice, people often don’t care as much as you do. And you get burned out. With that in mind very often, I think, we end up with the leaders we deserve, in our societies. For better or for worse. Journalists can’t really change that. And of course, being a journalist, the pay is absolutely terrible. It was a case of acquiring the serenity to accept the things I couldn’t change, the courage to change the things I could, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

So in 2012 I made a career change to cause-related communications. First I developed client relationships with healthcare clients for a London-based creative agency. Then I led communications at nonprofits in London, Oakland, and in New York City. I felt that writing was the best way to simplify complicated causes and get people to care more about joining them. Since going freelance, I’ve enjoyed working with some great clients. They tend to recommend me to other people for work, and so my business has grown primarily by word of mouth. 

In my spare time I’m a yoga teacher, and I have an agent working on selling a graphic memoir, Conkers, about growing up in South London in the 1980s. I like to make weird comics about stuff like mice hiding in cinemas, my con-artist psychic cousin, and freaking out while meditating. I also occasionally write straight-up prose for publication—The Independent just ran a piece I wrote about why the plot of Tenet is terrible, for example. And more importantly, why that matters. 

I enjoy coaching people to write books, collecting and occasionally even using cookbooks, playing golf and squash, being married and raising our son, Freddy. 

Most importantly, I love a good conversation. 

Hint. Hint. 💬