JOURNALISM

 

I've been writing for magazines and newspapers professionally since 1991 (although my first commission was for History Today to write about oral history societies in 1987) including Hello!, Maxim, FHM, Bella, the 'i' newspaper, and various inflight magazines. I am also now the online editor and de facto UK correspondent for Fine Books & Collections.  

There's a (very) small collection of my work over the last 15 years at The Independent including some of my regular weekly property columns plus features about choristers at Christmas and what was on Bin Laden's bookshelf.

Among the many pieces I've written about garden offices and shedworking is The Hut Parade for The Guardian.

The Idler magazine publishes my two regular columns every issue. You can download a free copy which includes pieces by me on holy sheds and strategic snooker studies (more fun than it sounds).

I've written lots of book-related pieces including what books to pack on holiday for Compass and this interview with the author of the Jennings stories, Anthony Buckeridge.

From 1998 to 2001 I lived and worked in Madrid where I was the features editor for The Broadsheet, the monthly national magazine for resident Englishspeakers in Spain, and editorial director of Spainalive.com guide site to living in and visiting the country. My piece on the rise of Spanglish is cited almost everywhere the topic is mentioned. Among my favourite interviewees from that time was the popular Spanish crime novelist Lorenzo Silva. While resident in Madrid, I was also the launch editor of the UK magazine Quicksilver aimed at the over-50s.

Among the charities I've written for is the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation. Here's a feature about how mentoring projects have helped women back into work.

I have also been interviewed many times for radio, television, and print, on Australia's ABC Late Night Live in discussion with the legendary broadcaster Phillip Adams about Improbable Libraries and on Open Book with Mariella Frostrup about the same title, on Atlas Obscura talking about Book Towns, on Monocle radio talking about Shelf Life, and on BBC Radio 4's Today programme talking again about Improbable Libraries (I didn't realise they were filming me or I'd have taken my coat off).