Born in the northwest of England in 1981, I am a Liverpool-based writer and editor.

After moving to China in 2008, I wrote and edited for many of Shanghai’s English language magazines including Shanghai Business Review, China Economic Review, City Weekend and SH Magazine. My freelance projects spanned business, lifestyle, travel, Chinese language, history and culture, and entertainment, and I have written for Virgin Media, Condé Nast, Executive Travel and the BBC. As a literary editor I have worked on the English translation of S. P. Tao’s memoir, as well as Fan Wen’s ‘Land of Mercy’ for Rinchen Books.

My poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been published in anthologies such as Eunoia Review, Junoesq, United Verses (2014), Unsavory Elements (Earnshaw, 2013), Middle Kingdom Underground (HAL, 2011), Unshod Quills (2011), and the May Anthologies 10th Anniversary edition (2003). My first poetry collection, Peckham Blue, was published in London by Penned in the Margins in 2006, and my second collection, Harbouring, came out in November 2015 under Math Paper Press in Singapore.

I was part of the Royal Court Theatre’s young writers’ programme from 2007 until 2008, and was a finalist and runner-up in British Vogue’s young writers’ competition in 2004 and 2005.

I hold a BA in English (2003) and an MA (2007) from St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford. I have a Masters of Research in Chinese Studies from the University of Liverpool (2017), where I am currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature, researching the persistent appeal of the “China exotic” in contemporary English fiction. I am a graduate of the Curtis Brown Creative three-month novel-writing course, and was recently a finalist in ‘Pulp Idol 2021’ as part of the Liverpool WOW festival.