I am a psychodynamic psychotherapist and author. My first book, When I Grow Up: conversations with adults in search of adulthood, exploring why so many people don’t feel like adults and what it really means to grow up, is out on 9 June (but can be pre-ordered already, if you so desire). I am represented by the fabulous Rebecca Carter at Janklow & Nesbit and my publisher is the luminous Scribe.

I am also a freelance journalist and I write cover stories and inside pieces for the features pages of G2, Guardian Weekend, Times2, The Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, New Scientist, Stylist and other publications, often with a psychoanalytic bent. The pieces I am most proud of include my first-person piece about growing up with an older father, my interview with a mother whose daughter was abused by a family friend and my article about the age of envy. I’ve had great fun working out with Mr Motivator, and my interview with the girl who pulled a 1500-year-old sword out of a Swedish lake went viral. I strive to expose the beauty and pain in our everyday lives; instead of splitting issues into black and white, I take a magnifying glass to the grey, clarifying the complexities rather than oversimplifying and reducing people and their issues to problems with straightforward solutions. Occasionally I am also funny.

Before going freelance I was Acting Commissioning Editor of The Times daily features section, Times2, and Editor of Times Woman, a weekly email sent out to subscribers. And before that I was number two on the features desk of the UK’s biggest-selling women’s magazine, Good Housekeeping, where I told the stories of inspiring women, interviewed public figures from Gwyneth Paltrow to David Cameron, commissioned and edited copy from award-winning writers and took delivery of (and wrote about) £20,000 worth of vibrators. During this time I also worked on the memoir of a women’s rights activist and wrote the French translation for the BAFTA-nominated film Black Pond.

In recent years, I have won, been highly commended or shortlisted for five PPA New Talent / BSME Talent awards; my my piece on egg freezing won a Guild of Health Writers Award in 2016; and my New Scientist cover story on sperm was highly commended in the 2018 awards. I have an MA in Magazine Journalism from City University.

In my work as a journalist I found myself intrigued by the power of listening. I subsequently trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and I now treat patients part-time at a talking therapies charity in London and in the NHS. My experiences in journalism, in psychotherapy training and as a patient in psychoanalysis have all informed my book, When I Grow Up: conversations in with adults in search of adulthood. (Did I mention, it’s out in June).