Who I am
I was born in South London, but let’s try not to hold that against me. After living in a variety of countries, I settled in Margate where the locals call me a ‘DFL’ – Down From London. (When I first heard the term, I thought it was the name of the local bus company.) I left school with a glittering array of qualifications, which over the next five years opened up many career doors, including being a council gardener, a croupier, motorcycle messenger and a drummer in a load of punk bands. And the amazing thing is, no one ever asked to look at my certificates. Everything changed when my then girlfriend’s mother’s lover saw some of my drawings and writing which I had left strewn about their West London flat, and wrote me a reference for college. I studied graphic design at what was then the London College of Printing. It was an excellent education and where I first met people serious about typography (the study of letter forms). Their obsession with this wonderful new world of letter shapes and ideas made an instant connection with me and my writing.
What I do
I started getting into writing down my thoughts and ideas when I was about 11 or 12, and since then I’ve been exploring words and what they can do through typography. I produce artworks solely consisting of type – just letters, performance, song writing and film scripts. I’ve written, financed and produced 3 short movies and earned my living designing for print. Lately, I’ve been specialising in designs for artist groups and their exhibitions, not just in the UK but abroad in France and Gibraltar. (Did I tell you I speak French?) It was at the Creative Writing Club at Margate Library where the group leader, Varney Cook, introduced me to flash fiction, and I now pretty much specialise in short pieces, invariably with a humorous edge, but not always ‘funny ha-ha’ – if you get my drift.
How I found out about New Publishers
It was Varney at the Margate Library that signed me up the New Publishers experience and it’s been a blast. It’s been really enjoyable to get in on the ground floor with a creative bunch of people to produce this Zine. (Did I tell you they chose my idea for the cover? They changed it about a bit, but that’s alright – if life’s a compromise, I tell ya, working in a group certainly is.)
The sessions we’ve had with the team leading the production, Justin, Dale, Jess, Francesca, and Connor, have been really informative and I’ve come away with a lot of new info, particularly about on-line publishing, advertising and blogs.
