Welcome!
I am professional writer. I have many published books under my belt and hope to have more before I finally unplug the computer.
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'Professional' means three things to me. One is excellence – everything I write must be of top quality, in clarity, accuracy and approachability, but also have flair and ‘feel’. The second is reliability – the whole business of sticking to briefs and hitting deadlines. A third is being pleasant and easy to deal with.
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I actually learnt these priorities as a gigging musician, a calling I pursued for a while (until I realized I was in the ‘good-but-not-quite-good-enough’ category, and duly bowed out)(I still play for fun.)
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Over the years I have done many radio and a few TV appearances, and written for much of the major national media.
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I worked in marketing, initially as a copywriter but developing an interest in strategy that led me to end up teaching the subject as a guest lecturer at City University.
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I also work as a ghostwriter, helping ‘thought leaders’ in business develop and express their ideas. I like to think that this has given me a broader set of perspectives than simply following my own passions would have done. It’s certainly been very enjoyable.
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My other main interests are psychology ( I studied counselling in my 40s) and history.
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My current project is a political history book on Big Ideas in British politics over the last two hundred years since the Great Reform Bill. I use the term Big Idea in a way a marketer would - something that makes a brand both stand out and last - rather than an intellectual historian. It makes more sense in the very public world of democratic politics. I have created a model of what this involves, and test this against the great administrations of the past. At the end, I make a call for progressive thinkers to create such an idea quickly, or we may well end up with a Reform UK or right-wing coalition government in 2029.
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I have also written crime fiction (set in China) and poetry.
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Thanks for visiting my site. Do have a click around, and get in touch via the button above right if you have any comments.