‘Words once said’ was shortlisted for the Parracombe Prize 2023 and is published in their anthology and in As The Leaves Turn. You can also read this short story online here.

“The dream is thrillingly creepy: now we are in nightmare territory.” An introduction to Natsume Soseki’s short story ‘The Third Night’ for Scratch Classics

My review of Reverse Engineering - short story collection and dissection from Scratch Books - for Exacting Clam

“Some way in to my recent trip to Japan it occurred to me that I hadn’t slept properly for twenty years…” My essay for Dodo Ink anthology Trauma is now available to read online at The London Magazine.

My review of Jonas Eika’s extraordinary collection After the Sun - in the first ever issue of Exacting Clam. Molluscs don’t come pickier than this one.

“In clear, unfettered prose Brina rediscovers the history and culture of Okinawa that belong to her: memories that ‘stay in our bodies, regardless of whether we actually lived through them’’’ … My review of Speak, Okinawa in The Spectator

“When monsters in horror movies roar grotesquely into view, it’s often the revelation that they’ve been there all along that’s the big scare. It’s a powerful trope: the axe murderer is locked in the house with you, the bomb is in the attic. We have always known that the US military does some dubious things to protect us.”

Read my review of Poisoning the Pacific for Review 31

Trauma: Art as a Response to Mental Health

Trauma is an anthology of essays on mental health. Essays range from the personal to the political, from the raw to the reflective, exploring topics such as grief, insomnia, anxiety, schizophrenia, meditation, abusive relationships, work, post natal depression, and the relationship between madness and creativity.

Read Venetia’s contribution, The Art of Lost Sleep, or watch a video of her talking about it.

“The harpy is childless, the creative feminine archetype turned destructive. She is seductive, though, a deadly, spectacular opposite to the patriarchal idea of a good woman.”

Read my review of The Harpy by Megan Hunter for Review 31

Very pleased to have a piece in Marina Benjamin’s Lockdown Anthology - Garden Among Fires - available as a kindle book here. Proceeds go to Refuge. Read the essay here.

An introvert’s guide to publicising a book, for the Oxford Editors blog. Proud to be an editor at this international literary consultancy.

“The streets of Soho teem with the ghosts of its past. Here Dylan Thomas staggers out of the French House leaving his manuscript of Under Milk Wood under a chair; here Francis Bacon gazes adoringly at Muriel Belcher, the Colony Room’s impressively rude hostess, and Jeffrey Barnard props up the outer wall of Norman’s Coach and Horses, fag in hand. Karl Marx is forever holed up in Dean Street writing Das Kapital; the naked cry of the baby William Blake floats across Broadwick, and by the brothels of Brewer, David Bowie and Lucian Freud vie to dance with Sylvia Plath. Only knock on the right door and every shade you could ever wish to meet is there in some scabrous drinking dive, having the party of their deaths.” Read the essay at The London magazine online.

“The puer aeternus is a man-child, trapped in the fantasy and enchantment of childhood magic. He is Peter Pan, but he is also Russell Brand and Michael Jackson; he’s the 45 year old that still takes his washing home to mummy; he’s a womaniser, a misogynist, a narcissist… it’s possible he’s a megalomaniac with a saviour complex.”

“No man is a male island, no woman independent of male qualities and so much of our perception of the complex world of gender is rigid, outdated and facile. Perched in the eye of a man may well be a pretty good place to reflect upon ‘the women’.”

A blog for creative writing students at Tavistock Tutors.

In 2015, I travelled in Spain, seeking to follow in the footsteps of some very distant relatives. Using their travel diaries as research, I wanted to see how the cities they visited - under the threat of revolution at the time - had changed over the intervening 160 years.

Review of The Gods Divided by Richard Sotnick for Roman Road London