About

I’m originally from the North East of England – a small pit village called Wingate in County Durham. I grew up in the North East then moved to Edinburgh to study English and Scottish Literature at Edinburgh University.

I did a masters in Magazine Journalism at City University in London and worked as a journalist for a number of years before moving into publishing. My articles have been published in the Bookseller, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the List, the Herald, Scotland on Sunday and Westerly Magazine. I’ve worked for a number of independent publishing houses in the UK and Australia including Birlinn Books, Freight Books, Floris Books and Fremantle Press. I recently worked as a copyeditor and specialist Northern dialect editor on a novel for Hachette UK.

I moved to Perth, Western Australia in 2017 and found myself in the centre of a vibrant writing community. After devising and editing a new arts website, Scoop Events, and a stint in the marketing team at Fremantle Press, I moved to teach writing, editing and publishing and journalism at Curtin University. I also gained my PhD there in Creative Writing looking at the use of Northern dialect in contemporary UK fiction and biases against the North in the UK book industry. My short fiction has been short and longlisted in numerous competitions, check out the Fiction page for more information.

I run the Northern Voices podcast exploring Northern writers (published and unpublished), storytelling and publishing. I  hosted the Readers & Writers Podcast for Arts Margaret River, review books for WesterlyMagazine, and moderate events at festivals and libraries.

My life away from writing mainly consists of surfing in a way that’s only moderately competent and playing tenor horn in a way that’s much more competent in A Grade and Championship Section brass bands in Australia and the UK. I currently live in Brisbane with my husband and our family of brass instruments.