About

I am an editor, writer, and a blogger. Here you can find My Portfolio of Work; my blogs – View From A Broad – about my exploits when I lived in the Middle East, Current Exploits  about life now, and Where Did My Life Go? – an account of a life-changing health scare that happened to me several years ago. You can also read about my novel – Splintered Lives, for which I am seeking agent representation.

The Nitty Gritty

I am currently a freelance editor, a writing mentor at Ministry of Stories, and am working on my first novel Splintered Lives. I am also author of a blog called View from a Broad. Previously, I was editor at The National Deaf Children’s Society, proofreader for Hachette UK’s crime imprint Little, Brown Book Group, features writer for Waitrose Weekend, and ran Creative Writing courses for services users at UK mental health charity, Mind.

During my time in the Middle East, I was deputy editor of Good Housekeeping Middle East; features writer for Grazia; sub editor of a series of arts and culture magazines in Bahrain and Dubai; editor of Destination Dubai, a biannual lifestyle guidebook designed for the luxury leisure market;  wrote The Soul of Dubai – a guidebook focusing on culture, food and history for Dubai Culture and Arts Authority; co-wrote The Unofficial Guide Dubai for Frommers and Cartoville Dubai for Gallimard Loisirs. I have also been a copywriter for clients such as Blackberry, Cadillac, Mercedes Benz, Panasonic, Persil and Samsung. All my published work can be found HERE.

In my writing, I focus on wellbeing, mental health, inclusivity and diversity, travel, culture, family, parenting and exploring the people behind a story. Key aspects of my work include attention to detail, strong research, and a collaborative approach. I have always had a passion for travel, languages and communication.

The Other Stuff…

Originally from London, I backpacked round India for a year, teaching English to primary school children, before studying French and Spanish at university. In an attempt to find a proper job, I worked as an au pair in Spain, as a receptionist at backpacker’s hostel Hotel California in Athens, and for PGL Adventure Holidays chaperoning groups of 16-18 year olds to France on adventure holidays, but a proficiency in whitewater kayaking didn’t earn me enough to live on so I headed back to London to work variously as a management trainer, with the homeless community and as a French teacher.

I then returned to college to study Art & Design, was told I’d be suited to curating, and somehow ended up in the conservation department of the National Museum of Bahrain in 2006, where I restored 5000 year old pots. After a respectable amount of time I escaped onto archaeological digs for a year before finding work on a glossy magazine as a features writer.

I moved to Dubai in 2009 and after freelancing for Grazia and a stint at Good Housekeeping Magazine as deputy editor, decided to write my first novel – Splintered Lives telling the story of Isabelle Johnson and her mother Suzanne.  The discovery of her free-spirited mother’s diaries sets Isabelle on an unsettling journey to solve the mystery of her chaotic childhood and uncover the secrets of her mother’s past. The novel explores the themes of family relationships, friendship, first love and coming of age, as well as the impact of mental illness.

I was then commissioned to write guidebooks about Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar and worked as a features writer and sub editor for Brownbook Magazine which addresses urban issues, the arts and culture in the Middle East. I was also editor of a bi-monthly coffee-table style guidebook – called Destination Dubai. 

In 2013, seven years after emigrating to the Middle East, I had to pack up my expat life and return to London for a year of breast cancer treatment, which I’ve written about here.

A year after the end of treatment, still slightly shell-shocked, a desire to ‘give back’ saw me running Creative Writing courses for service users at mental health charity Mind. 

As a freelancer I wrote articles on health and wellbeing for Waitrose Weekend, received  writing commissions from clients in the Middle East, and was a proofreader for Little, Brown Book Group, while working on rewrites of Splintered Lives and penning View From A Broad: The Blog and Current Exploits. When I had finally had enough of living in trackie bottoms and talking only to my dogs, I decided that what I really wanted was a part time editing and writing job, in London, in a charity, as part of a communications team. That job found me and I was appointed editor in the Comms team at the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS). Two and half years later, I am now a freelance editor, and volunteer as a writing mentor for the excellently named Ministry of Stories, a charity which runs creative writing programmes for young people in east London. In my spare time I’m giving my novel a good going-over before jumping into the submission process.

I have a passion for a good story, dark humour and what makes people tick. I am naturally inquisitive and am particularly interested in psychology, travel, mental health issues, and relationships: all themes I bring to my features, my novel and my blog. I love learning languages and the art of communication and while I was at NDCS started learning British Sign Language.

Drop me a line here  – I’d love to hear from you.