Welcome to my website.  I’ve worked for more than four decades as a writer, performer, tutor, consultant and collaborator. Now in my early seventies, I’m interested in new forms of expression, new collaborations and language structures.

There is much archive material here, charting my history, experience and a variety of learning processes.

I have published 11 books. My latest, 4th novel, Asylum, has been enthusiastically read and received by a number of colleagues, and is now being read by Agents and Publishers. This book has received a Lannan Foundation Grant, an ACE Grant to complete and has the backing of Tom Avery at Heinemann. It is considered rich in subject and language, erotic, funny and deeply exploratory. Relishing variety of scenario and language, it unfolds themes of identity, survival, the unconscious, family relationships, sexualities, disease and cure (psychic & physical). Two settings: mid-Wales 1784 – 1811 (Mariamne), contemporary England (Hester), the two narratives inter-twine. I researched Mariamne in depth – botany, entomology, classification of plants, the Linnaean Society, folk and ‘formal’ cure, art, architecture, birds. The book leads to Krakow and the Holocaust, not directly, but alongside the visible and hidden life of the two women. I am told this novel is perfect for staging, as dance or opera. It would be a gift for an innovative Film Director.

Behold is my latest collection from Enitharmon (see 2011 catalogue). The title poem ‘vividly evokes the history of the Holocaust’. John Berger writes: ‘Its grief has penetrated its syntax and when there’s that kind of penetration – it changes the reader’s breathing’. I read the title poem Behold at the plenary session of the War and Memory Conference in Warsaw, September 2012. This single poem was the springboard for a Production by the Nightingale Theatre. I devised an evening of responses to the poem’s text and/or themes. Dance, film, song, music, the spoken word, were welded into a seamless narrative, created and directed by myself on the day of the performance, June 2015.

I have been working with a director and dramaturge Annie Castledine on a play for theatre or broadcast. And Then He Cried was completed to first draft at the point of Annie’s sudden death, July 2016. This ends a 10-year working relationship, yet so powerful that the work continues within me, as does her presence. I have continued work on And The He Cried with the support of Maria Pattinson and Annabel Arden, both known to Annie. The play is under consideration by two London theatres. My books have cover-quotes from Ted Hughes, Barry Unsworth, D.M.Thomas, Anne Stevenson, Adrian Mitchell & John Berger.

‘Write for Life’ is my creative writing manual and an exploration of how language affects and changes us. I learn that it is used by professional writers as well as students. Being so widely relevant, it is used also across the health and therapy sectors. Information to support my work can be found across this website. Public work includes mounting the first St.Ives Festival as S.W. Representative for the New Activities Committee of ACE; seven years work for Brighton Festival, three as Writer-in-Residence, two running my series Brighton Lines, and then Programme Consultant for two years.

I have tutored creative writing for over 40 years in all manner of settings and for all levels of ability. Ten years for Arvon, work for Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, eg. collaborating on Paula Rego’s Print Show (workshops & Gallery-readings/talks). I devised a presentation for Brighton Jewish Film Festival with Moris Farhi & Jane Haynes (SAP Jungian Analyst). I give public readings and talks, often shaped thematically or extending to dramatised presentations with music & musicians, visual arts, dance, movement. I also use all this in my tutoring.

A first career in theatre began with dance and acting training leading to an Honours Acting Diploma (good public voice!). I spent four years in professional theatre & touring my own company ‘Tower of Babel’. I’m returning to my theatrical roots in writing for theatre. I have worked on a play evoking music and survival in concentration camps. Also a short play about a mother/daughter relationship, Bluebells and Bordellos, directed by Annie Castledine at the Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.

Having had a full Jungian analysis (16 years), I have intimate knowledge of human nature, frailties, strengths, emotional projections, extreme situations. I’m preparing a book and a play about this analysis. This, and extensive life/work experience has given me a particularly acute awareness and insight.

I have also broadcast on radio and television in relation to much of the above, including The South Bank Show, Meridian, Radio 3 and Radio 4.

I’m fascinated by extreme behaviour, causes of political movements, what makes a killer, abuses, collaboration, the law, toxic relationships, what freedom is. Depth psychology.
Fire Burning in Snow, a setting of my poems by composer, Charlotte Bray, premiered at Aldeburgh, June 2013. This is now the most substantial piece on Charlotte’s Debut CD, At the Speed of Stillness.

I have two degrees and am a Founder Member of Brighton Dome & Festival. I welcome contact regarding any of the above including innovative collaboration & projects.