My illustrated life: a circuitous route back to drawing

This is a summary of a fun presentation that I was asked to do for a school careers talk!

An illustrated map of my life

This map is divided into the 3 main places I’ve lived in. And shows some of the quite a lot of different literary adjacent things I’ve done, before I got back into drawing.

In Bristol:

I read books in my room. I loved to draw. I wanted to be a writer or an artist for a job, but aged 6, I didn’t really know how to do that.

When I got to senior school. I became more interested in plays. I was no good at acting, but I loved the theatre and I loved writing, I thought maybe I could become a playwright. I started writing plays, one of which won a West Country-wide competition. With my £200 prize, I bought a camera, and I enjoyed photography, but it never gripped me like writing did.

On my map in the Bristol part, there are both the Bristol Old Vic and the Bath Theatre Royal, a script, a pile of books and a cat to represent my interests at that time. (I was always a cat person, though I have nothing against most dogs.)

In London - Part 1:

Then I went to London – to do a degree in Film Studies and English.

In this part of the map – at this time, I was focusing on writing novels, and tv scripts. At university, I thought I might follow up my interest in playwriting, but I didn’t get on with the people who ran the drama society, so instead I became a writer for the student magazine.

I wrote 100s of reviews, and continued to write them after I graduated. I was also working on a volunteer basis for a North London listings magazine as an Editorial Assistant, and wrote lots of articles for them. I got the job as an Editor of a brand-new Camden Magazine called The Lock. That didn’t last very long though, because nobody knew what they were doing, just after a year and a half, the magazine went bust.

I tried a bit of freelancing – I wrote about anything: articles about computer software, wrote recipes and more reviews.

Around about this time, I got back into playwriting, and was accepted onto The Royal Court Theatre’s Young Playwrights’ Scheme. At the same time, I got a full-time job, producing publications for a London University Students Union. I edited and produced a monthly students’ magazine for 2 years and built them a website. My first play was produced in London – called PRETTY BOY – which was inspired by screwball comedies from the 1940s like Bringing Up Baby, was performed at The White Bear theatre in London.

After that, I studied a short 6-week course in directing for the theatre. It was there that my writing career kind of split in two – I was writing plays and short stories, I entered some competitions, got published and won a few prizes, was part of lots of short play showcases, but it wasn't enough to live off, so I went into full-time jobs in magazine and publications production for universities, charities and membership organizations, and was only writing as a hobby. 

In London – part 2

In this part of the map, there I am directing a play on the London fringe circuit. I also became a script reader for The Cock Tavern. In my day job, I edited and print publication managed between 200-300 printed magazines, books, fliers, leaflets, banners and journals, all sorts of printed matter during this part of my career. Even merchandise like keyrings and branded bumbags. I worked on fascinating subjects such as asthma, theatre buildings, and the inner workings of universities.

I had some very exciting playwriting things happen during this time. A play I wrote was selected to premiere at an Italian festival, alongside some plays by famous playwrights. That’s indicated on the map by the airplane flying off to Italy. I also set up an organization to support female playwrights – 17 Percent, and for about 8 years, I campaigned to get more plays on UK stages by female identifying playwrights. I had a blog and a video channel where I interviewed female playwrights, and I set up and produced a regular monthly showcase of short plays.

I studied for an MA in Creative Writing (in plays and scripts). Then I moved to Medway.

In Medway:

Not long after moving to Medway, I decided to set up my own word adjacent literary company - Wordsmithery. I was going to do anything and everything slightly related to words: freelance writing, maybe some copywriting, put on literary events. I’d do dramaturgy, I’d teach writing workshops and I’d do community literary projects. The first one was at a Medway festival in 2013, where I created the world’s smallest portable writing retreat, THE WORD SHED. Over the weekend of the festival, 200+ people sat in the shed and relaxed as they did some writing.

Over the last 10+ years with Wordsmithery, I’ve done lots of community literary projects including running regular live lit nights.

After I moved to Medway, I started writing many more short stories, creative non-fiction, and even poems, that I’d send to magazines. Some of them were even

published, some of them I was even paid for.

I wrote short plays for a local Youth Theatre Company, and also scripts for their open air production. Then I was commissioned to write a short play about human trafficking, which I developed into a longer play about human trafficking, and it has now been performed at the Edinburgh festival, it’s had several tours of the UK, and even had a performance in Texas. It’s called MY MIND IS FREE.

And it’s also the thing which led to reigniting of my love of drawing.

COVID...

During the Pandemic in 2020, I was awarded Arts Council DYCP funding (thanks) to adapt MY MIND IS FREE into a graphic novel. It was at this point that I got wholeheartedly back into art, and you can see some of my illustrations and other books in the Store.

And what is the alien on the map about?

In summer last year, I got an email, which I thought was spam at first, saying that a story I’d written which had been published in an anthology several years ago – was now on the moon! It had been selected to be put onto a disc by NASA and taken with them into a depository of culture on the moon. How bizarre is that?

So I'm still writing, but drawing too now and it just goes to prove you can never tell where things might take you!