I am a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, and, while I love writing both, in recent years I have discovered a passion for writing and mentoring literary memoir and the personal narrative. My move towards writing nonfiction has taken me back to my roots in some way – my journalism training at Time Out magazine where I worked throughout my 20s, and my mother’s profession as a biographer. I am most interested in the personal narrative when it acts as a springboard for insight – as essayist Leslie Jamison observed, ‘using your life as evidence’ for something greater.

Most recently in my writing I’ve explored intergenerational legacy, and specifically the impact of addiction. I don’t shy away from difficult subject matter and have written about the experience of being the child of a cult member, about intimacy in the age of polyamory, about the impact of sexual abuse and grooming on the teenage girl.

My fiction tends to spring from experiences I have had in my personal life, and I am particularly interested in the grey area between fiction and nonfiction – the imagination plays a big part in my personal narratives, and my fiction is closely related to my life. Fiction then becomes a way of exploring those topics I am too afraid to explore in memoir!

Shadowing the Sun (Portobello Books, 2007) was my first published novel – a semi-autobiographical novel about the legacy of parental neglect and broader issues around liberal 1970s quasi spiritualism.

My memoir, Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling (W&N, 2022) is about my father’s various attempts to escape himself – becoming a sex addict, joining a cult, dying of addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs – and the impact his choices had on those who loved him. It was The Guardian and The Spectator Nonfiction Book of the Year, 2022.

I also co-edited an anthology of recovery stories, A Wild and Precious Life (Unbound, May 2021) which evolved from my teaching a voluntary class of creative writing to people recovering from addiction at Hackney Recovery Service, affiliated with St Mungo’s.

My latest book is INTO BEING: The Radical Craft of Memoir and its Power to Transform (published by MUP, 7th October, 2025), is a hybrid craft memoir / book on how to write memoir, with particular emphasis on the healing power of memoir, as a literary self-help for our times. in 2023 I completed a doctorate in the above subject, and so officially I am a Dr! 

I run a teaching partnership London Lit Lab with friend and author Zoe Gilbert, and have a loyal following of students who attend my seminars in literary memoir and the personal essay. I also teach Narrative Nonfiction at Bath Spa University, their undergraduates and MA students. You can also find me here.