I’m midway through what feels like the millionth edit of my book, and this is particularly relevant at the moment. It’s still strange to me that a world can exist so vividly and entirely within my head, and now on the paper I’m reading, and that the people from this world feel like real and […]

“Are you a Christmassy person?” is a question nobody has ever asked me. I don’t think that you have to know very much about me to understand that I am one of those people. In fact, in the past few years I’ve actually had to make a conscious effort to draw back from anything too festive, lest […]

When I first started my Literature degree, the first question I was asked in most of my seminars was, “What is your favourite book?” Now, I have to admit that I had a problem with this question, and I would like to point out that any discerning Literature student would probably not be able to […]

I told you I loved Autumn. Ten whole poems I’ve shared on here, ten pieces of my soul. I’m feeling a bit braver now, a bit more like I love what I’m doing and I love the feeling that people, however few, are reading my work, however crappy. Watch this space, as ever.  

Woops, I did a bad thing, and that was to read this book and completely forget to post a review. I did have some thoughts about it though, and some discussions with friends, so if you just give me a moment, maybe I can try and rearrange a few ideas to share. A debut psychological thriller […]

It was a rainy Saturday in Manchester, and to avoid the damp crowds and deep puddles, my friend and I ducked into the city cinema to watch Brooklyn. “An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a new romance. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between […]

I can’t be the only one who sees everything through rose-tinted glasses of my own making, who lives with an overactive imagination so hopeful, so resourceful, that I can fall in love with my version of something a million times before it becomes itself. I don’t know if it’s naive or optimistic to see the […]

Dear Diary, So you think you’d like to be a writer? So you have an idea. Except you don’t want to use that word because it sounds like such a vague and immeasurable of a thing when yours is so concrete, so permanent, so immutable. So you have a fire lit inside of you which […]

I’m not really sure the kind of work I want to share on my blog – the really personal poems, the long ones, the tiny little 1am thought ones, the haikus? I want to be able to share my favourite things, everything that means a lot to me, but I also want it to be the […]

Unfortunately, I’ve never been one to describe myself as a film critic or movie buff. My favourite films are ideally animated by Disney and/or complete with a complicated romantic entanglement which concludes with a happy ending. I always tried my best to avoid Shakespeare at university, not because I didn’t like it, but because I […]