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, 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. The skills learned on this course continue to help me daily, and I treat all my ‘real life’ interviewees sensitively, respectfully and with genuine warmth and kindness as a result.
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 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, My Weekly and Woman’s Own, as well as specialist titles including 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 pulls together my editorial and commercial experience writing for young women on issues including sexual health and unwanted pregnancy. To tie in with this, I became a member of BASE (British Association of Sexual Educators) in early 2009 and am listed at Expert Sources.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.
I absolutely love fashion. I work shifts at LOOK magazine (my spiritual home) and blog about fashion misadventures. Unsurprisingly, my next book project is a fresh and funny fashion bible.
My portfolio is stuffed to the gills, which is testament to my hard-working attitude and dogged determination. I never miss a deadline, file copy of the highest standard and have shed loads of tenacity and talent. From geocaching with my family in the wilds of Lincolnshire, and sailing with the world’s best yachtswomen, to line dancing in Tennessee, if it's in the name of journalism I’ll give it a whirl.
I’m also 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
