When I go on holiday I pack more books than clothes. This is all you really need to know about me. It’s a fascination that started in my teens with sixties American literature and has taken me across many genres since. I am proud that ‘reading’ was cited as the reason for the end of not one but two relationships. To satiate my desire for words and promote my home town of Nottingham I’ve dabbled in various literary roles. My previous relationships include: Director of UNESCO Nottingham City of Literature; Chair of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio; Director Festival of Words; Member of the Alan Sillitoe Committee. Current commitments include: Books Editor at LeftLion, the Ray Gosling Archives at Nottingham Trent University and a member of the D.H Lawrence Society. All of which means that when I am not reading I am writing. My laptop is the other woman.

Once upon a time I wrote short stories and was published in various magazines and even won an award. Quite a few of these ended up in anthologies with Route, including a small collection. Then I wrote a novel which was accepted for publication (twice) but nothing materialised. It then went to an agent who got really excited about it and then I never heard back from him again. I’ve lobbed it up in the loft for a rainy day and turned to other stuff.

In between this I’ve been banging out as much as I can as a literary journalist with articles appearing in the Guardian, Independent, Radio 3 and 4, Writing Magazine, The New Writer, Transmission, Staple, etc. More recently I’ve enjoyed digital storytelling and have edited together two mammoth projects. The Sillitoe Trail was a commission for BBC/Arts Council England which explored the enduring relevance of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The other is Dawn of the Unread, a graphic novel celebrating Nottingham’s literary heritage. in 2015 it won the Teaching Excellence Award at the Guardian Education Awards. I’m currently working on Untold Stories and a digital project that will recreate D.H Lawrence’s savage pilgrimage called the Memory Theatre.

About the site

Where legally able, published work has been made downloadable for free, thereby saving a few trees and guaranteeing personal poverty. I only use the ‘k’ on this website because it was the only available domain. Not because I’m proud of my middle name (Kenneth) or so I sound like JK Rowling. I’m not deluded, honest.