About Me

I was born in London and have a first-class degree in English from the University of Edinburgh. After spending a bit of time after graduation in TV as a researcher (Hat Trick, Objective, BBC) I returned to Edinburgh where I took up an AHRC-funded PhD on Philip Larkin’s poetics of place.

It was while completing my PhD that I became fascinated by the behaviour of a local cat, prompting me to create the blog Library Cat. This went on to become the book Library Cat, before being translated into Korean, French and Italian and winning the People’s Book Prize. More about the strange journey to publishing Library Cat can be found here. 

My poetry, reviews and articles have been published in journals such as New Writing Scotland, Orbis, The London Magazine and Gutter. Several have won prizes, including the Charles Causley Poetry Prize.

Larkin’s Travelling Spirit was published with Palgrave MacMillan upon completion of my  PhD in 2021. These days, I work half the time at Capital Theatres, as a Creative Projects Coordinator, and editor of the community magazine DementiArts, while spending the rest of the time on my writing projects, with the occasional bit of TikTok procrastination!

I am writing this at my kitchen table in Edinburgh as my cat Tabitha attempts to knock my wine glass off the table, and my wife Ellie does some yoga.