About

Who am I? I’m a thirty-something woman, native of Cheadle (South Manchester), London-dweller for longer than I care to remember, with a stint of overseasness than got the travelling out of my system. With a predilection for pink and purple clothes, combined with an increasingly obsessive interest in all things green, eco and sustainable, and a desire to shop less, I’m a little bit geek and a little bit girlie.

Call me a conundrum.

My politics are left, but I’m right on education. My lightbulbs are low-energy, but sometimes I go on a plane. I’m a vegetarian, but I occasionally eat fish (out, I don’t cook it anymore). I’m extrovert and I’m shy, I’m good and I’m bad, I’m nice and I’m naughty. I’m a twentyfirst century girl: there’s not exactly a niche that I fit into, apart from my own, and sometimes that makes me feel good, and sometimes I wish I could open the Boden catalogue and fall in love with everything within, even the wellies.

And I’m Jewish. I often think that the (Jewish) world is divided into people who say “hello I’m Jewish” and people who don’t, and if it is, I may fall into the first category. I once heard a non-Jewish friend describe my blog as a “Jewish blog” and I overheard a Jewish friend describe me as the most Jewish person they know. This does not mean that I’m a super-frummer who never goes out, just that being Jewish kinda informs my life in a big way, and I write about it. A lot. I once harboured a desire to write a column in the Jewish Chronicle (known as “The Paper”, just like the Israeli Embassy is known as “The Embassy), and who knows, maybe one day I will.

I do write a column in the Jewish Quarterly, occasionally for online magazines, and other people, and I’ve been writing a novel for longer than I care to own up to. Actually, it’s my second novel, because I had a better idea. I like to think of the first novel as practice. And I like to think that the months I’ve spent writing and not-writing my current novel has improved it: like a fine wine the ideas have aged, matured into (what I hope will be) a complex novel about the nature of identity in an alternate reality world. It’s about blogs and Virtual Worlds and sex (isn’t it always), with a North London sensibility and (hopefully) something of a sense of humour. Current ETA: some time soon. Really, I promise.

I struggle with juggling my paid work – I freelance for a range of largely well-known media companies, doing strategy, marketing and events – with my writing life. Don’t we all. Oh, and I got started because I started blogging in 2002. I’ve never looked back. And I think it’s possible that I’ve written nearly a million words.

Although not all of them are good, obviously.