Who on earth is she?
I was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire many moons ago. I discovered a passion for writing in primary school and it haunted me throughout my school years. In 1992, I sacrificed my ambition to become the next Demi Moore and plumped for an English degree at the wildly exotic University of Huddersfield.
After graduating I spotted a job in The Guardian promising free drinks on a Friday night. Without further ado I packed my bags and spent the next year in the marketing department of a publishing house. I was best avoided on a Friday night, after 9pm.
In summer ’96 I moved on to pursue a career in the music industry. I joined a small team of creative marketing consultants in Chelsea, working with major record labels to put compilation albums together. Listening to music all day was my idea of heaven, and writing sleeve notes for many albums in the multi-million-selling Now That’s What I Call Music! series is still a decent claim to fame in certain circles.In addition to the 9-to-5, my ambitions in the field of journalism resurfaced and I began contributing regularly to BBC Online’s teen section, writing quizzes, fashion & relationship features and celebrity stories. I also placed movie and music-related reviews and interviews with Virgin Megastore’s Slant and The Fly.
In late 2002, I made the leap to freelancing full-time. As well as teenage-interest briefs from the BBC and Sneak magazine, I also started copy writing for a record label in Belfast and various international advertising agencies, including Euro RSCG and iris.
In 2003, I was commissioned on a six month contract by German-owned blog-hosts, www.20six.co.uk and alongside this new challenge I completed an invaluable foundation stage counselling skills qualification.
In May 2004, my son Eliott was born. I continued working for 20six on a freelance basis, as well as accepting ad-hoc copy writing and editorial commissions. In 2005, I focused on editorial work. Over the next two years my features (mainly health, lifestyle and real life, with some fashion thrown in) were published in The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Express, The Sunday Mirror, The People, Practical Parenting, Love It!, Real People, Essentials, REAL, More and Bliss.
I’ve gone on to write features, advertorials, opinion pieces and interviews for most major publishers and titles including The Times, Grazia, LOOK, Take a Break, Elle Online, Stylist, EasyLiving, The Independent, Woman, My Weekly and Woman’s Own, as well as specialist titles including Fertility Road, Spirit and Destiny, Maternity & Infant, The White Pages and Line Dancer Magazine.
In 2008, I contributed to a parenting book released by Hamlyn/Practical Parenting. In June 2009, my own book, Abortion – The Essential Guide, hit the shelves. This title pulled together my editorial and commercial experience writing for young women on issues including sexual health and unwanted pregnancy.Along with my friend and colleague, Olivia Gordon, I started hosting hugely popular real life journalism workshops in March 2009 and in 2010 we created a correspondence course for journalists, as well as launching further courses for journalism.co.uk and media masterclasses for PRs.
In early 2010, I appeared as a guest on Jo Good's BBC London Late Show, and now they can't get rid of me - I appear at least once a month as a recurring contributor, talking about everything from gypsy weddings to rubber fetishism. And dancing to jive tunes in the studio (you couldn't make this up).
Once I felt that my career was well-established enough, I was desperate to write much more about the things I truly loved and felt passionate about; namely fashion (and as much travel as my editors will allow). In 2009, I worked my first shifts at LOOK magazine to find my feet and have been blogging about my fashion misadventures since January 2010.
Thanks to my blog, I was contracted as resident fashion blogger for eBay in December 2010 and in January 2011 started work as (freelance) web features editor for hitched.co.uk, writing lots about wedding trends and fashion, as well as all other things wedding related.
Fashion fast became established as my specialism - and dominated my entire working life. I'd never been happier and in August 2011, the deal was sealed when I teamed-up with fashion comparison website Style Compare to become the company's head of fashion (on a freelance basis, natch).
So, now I split my time between eBay, Hitched and Style Compare, as well as squeezing in ad hoc commissions for iFashion Magazine, The Guardian, EasyLiving and AOL ParentDish. And the blog seems to go from strength to strength.
And in spite of the "fashionista" rep, I’m still the same old bird at heart; game for a laugh, swear like a trooper and drink far too much at parties. You can take the girl out of Bradford, but you can’t take Bradford out of the girl.
Photo taken by Nina Hollington
