Journalism and editing

Visual arts, tech, books, photography, theatre, music and design are my main beat as a writer, but in 20 years as a journalist I've tackled topics as diverse as why wood is the building material of the future, whether Britain can regain its former glory at snooker, the world of live coding and “algorave” and the remarkable career of Malian photographer Malick Sidibé (a New York Times front page). I have a keen interest in global culture, and an eye for big stories of all kinds.

I’ve interviewed many major names, including Marina Abramovic (another NYT front page), Tom Stoppard, Cate Blanchett, Svetlana Alexievich, Grayson Perry, Toby Jones, Kirill Serebrennikov, Cornelia Parker, Ian McEwan and Martin Parr. As well as contributing to outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Prospect magazine and The New Yorker, I’ve reported from countries including the US, China, Russia, Germany, Japan, India and Belarus. 

I'm also a hugely experienced commissioning editor with deep digital and print experience. I worked most recently on the longform desk at the FT, assigning and editing some of the paper’s high-profile Big Reads and visual investigations.

If you’d like to discuss a piece I could write – or commission me! – do get in touch.

Editing

I’m a hugely experienced desk editor who’s worked with some of the world’s most prestigious media outlets.

I spent nine years on staff as a senior editor at The Guardian, commissioning coverage of all kinds and across all platforms – print, digital, video, audio and interactive. I then covered for the deputy editor at Prospect magazine in 2017–18, before spending three years as a freelance senior editor on the FT Magazine, putting together numerous weekly issues, commissioning special supplements and much more.

From autumn 2023 to summer 2025, I was a senior editor on staff at the FT: initially on FT Weekend (Arts/Books) then the Big Read, lead-editing longform stories on everything from economics to geopolitics, social trends to science, health and tech.

 
 

How We Fell Out of Love with Dating Apps

I commissioned and edited this FT Big Read on why online dating companies are in crisis, as women and younger users look elsewhere. It was one of our most read stories of 2024.

 

How Extremist West Bank Settlers Became the Law

I co-edited this Visual Investigation, nine months in the making, transforming it from a collage of video, data, geolocation into a tightly reported feature that was published a Big Read in the UK and international print editions of the FT.

 

FT Magazine Special Editions

During my time at the FT Magazine, I curated several themed editions on design, sustainability and other topics: finding writers, commissioning stories, working with designers and the visual team, and pulling the whole package together in print and online.

 

Long reads and interviews

I love long-format storytelling, and have written in-depth reported pieces for the Guardian Long Read section, The New Yorker, the FT Magazine, The New York Times and Prospect magazine, as well as doing a wealth of other feature-writing. Here are a few of my faves.

 
 

The Doctor Will Send You Fishing Now [Bloomberg Businessweek]

Can joining a choir cure heart disease? Can a gardening club improve your mental health? For this Bloomberg deep dive, I delved into the fascinating – and controversial – world of “social prescribing”.

 

How to Move a Masterpiece [Guardian Long Read]

I spent seven months digging into the secretive world of art handling, finding out how priceless art works travel the globe … and what happens when someone puts a forklift through your Picasso.

 

The Museum of 2020
[New Yorker]

I shadowed curators at the Smithsonian in Washington DC as they tried to work out what future generations would make of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter – all while attempting to stay afloat.

 

Features and reporting

In 20 years as a journalist, I’ve covered a huge array of cultural subjects – from how an opera company is helping long covid patients breathe again to the history of Italian design.

 
 

‘It’s Not Like I Only Look for the Bullseye’ [FT Weekend]

A profile of the remarkable – and remarkably prolific – photographer Joel Meyerowitz, renowned for his captivatingly chaotic street scenes

 

Is the Future of Building … Wooden? [FT Magazine]

A reported feature exploring how timber is redefining architecture. Can an ancient building material really be the way forward?

 

The Meaning of the Moon [NY Times]

I travelled to Copenhagen for the Times to get inside a new art exhibition devoted to a personal obsession of mine – our closest and yet most enigmatic celestial body