Writing across art, culture and education, moving between criticism, fiction and review.
The work often returns to working-class culture, place and the creative lives that unfold beyond official spaces.
See all Reviews + Poetry + Short Stories/ Flash Fiction + Creative non-fiction
Writing on film, theatre and art, attentive to place, voice and the spaces where culture happens.
Borrowed voices, open doors: Manchester Film Festival 2026
Manchester Film Festival closes with exactly the right kind of film. Not something inflated for the sake of a finale, but a work that catches hold of one of the festival’s deeper currents. California Schemin’ arrives at the end of 11 days of screenings, conversations, applause and immersion. In its story of borrowed voices and improvised […]
Gods, grapples and guffaws: Mythos Ragnarök at the Floral Pavilion
The Floral Pavilion sits out on the edge of New Brighton, facing the Mersey with Liverpool’s docks looming across the water. Around it, the place holds that familiar seaside mix: arcades, food stalls, families drifting, a slight wear that never tips into decline because there is too much life moving through it. It feels right […]
What a Film Festival Does to a City
A fight broke out on the station platform, one man versus himself, and it got messy. Blood wasn’t spilt, but his can was, and beyond the frantic flailing at invisible enemies I could see across the platform, in that grey half light on the tarmac, the Vue cinema where I’ve spent hours hiding from the […]
Creative Work
Fiction, poetry and experimental writing drawn from place, memory and lived experience.
Creative Match 2025 — Collaborative Letters Across Time
This work is part of the Creative Match 2025, an initiative by Manic World Magazine pairing writers in collaborative exchange. What follows is part of an ongoing epistolary project between myself and Canadian writer, Jess Logan — letters written across time, distance, and shared ground. Chapter I July 19th 1970. The sign says “The […]
The Hacienda Must be Grown
Dragging the canvas to the flyover when it was just plain and grey and flimsy was not the kind of drag that meant channels of mud. It never once touched the ground, it was always at least waist height and it blew around a bit and acted as a sail. The sense of being dragged was inside the body, of the walk harder usual because of this giant, empty thing.
Fragments – Three Stories at Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington
Fragments was a series of three short stories performed at Haworth Art Gallery in October 2024. Each story uses a short form, 200 words, to develop punchy images of life. This is the video taken during the event, live and direct! The stories as a book can be found on the website under ‘fragments’. Fragments […]
Essays and Criticism
A selection of earlier essays on art, culture and education.
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