I work freelance in north-east England as a writer, researcher and facilitator. After an MA in Creative Writing in 2005, I merged my career in community work with creative writing projects. I was commissioned by New Writing North as part of a dementia writing project in 2011, followed by further dementia writing projects in the NHS and care sector, then a Churchill Fellowship to research theoretical and practical approaches to creative writing with people with dementia. In 2015, I was funded by Arts Council England to create an installation (Outer Places, Inner Voices) in response to older people's experience of living in rural Northumberland. For the past decade, I have documented each project in detail and reflected on the impact of working with people with dementia on my own creativity, ethics, and practice. This has formed the basis of creative non-fiction book in progress, Writing with Marbles.

Currently I run writing workshops for local community groups, alongside working on my own fiction and factual writing. As a member of the National Association of Writers in Education, Lapidus and the Fellowship, I speak at events and write literary articles. I live in a field in Northumberland, with sea on the horizon and dogs at my desk. I am practising for Grade 5 jazz saxophone.