I have been passionate about language and literature as long as I can remember.  It is no surprise that I ended up choosing to study the subject at Manchester University and then taught English as a second language for 32 years of my working life!

I had my first poem published in the Manchester Evening News when I was eight years old and was always writing short stories and poetry throughout my life.  Despite the fact that I worked as a marketing and PR professional and writing was a huge part of this, very few people knew about my creative writing hobby – until around 2010, when I shared a few poems with a friend.  I then also started to try my hand at song-writing.  It was not long after that I met the wonderful Charlotte Maxwell, who invited me to join the last few of her funded workshops entitled Mixed Tapes.  These workshops were aimed at people who of mixed heritage and it was only then I realised that a lot of my writing was about the same theme.  My first open mic experience was at Chapter One Books at the end of the workshops and I enjoyed it immensely.

In 2017 I was invited to perform my poetry at two festivals:  Women Hold up Half the Sky at Alexandra Park in Whalley Range and Through the Mill in Ancoats.

Also in 2017, I was also commissioned two write two songs for Tram Tracks – an extensive arts project brought about through collaboration between Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and Manchester Metrolink.  Songs and spoken word performances were composed for all 93 stops on the Metrolink network.  I was asked to compose songs for Westwood and Bury stops.  I invited two female musician friends to work with me – Sarah Sayeed contributed Bengali lyrics to the Westwood song and Carol Jason worked with me to research and arrange the Bury song.  We performed them at the Bridgewater Hall as part of the project.  You can find the lyrics below.

I am currently working on an Arts Council England funded project alongside two other female singer-songwriters, Sarah Sayeed and Tiki Black, through Lingua Franca World Community CIC.  We will each write two songs and then work with some of the finest professional world musicians currently residing in North West England to produce final tracks to perform on an online concert in November 2020.  Very excited – watch this space!

I am always interested in commissions to perform my poems at events and festivals.  If you’d like to talk to me about possibilities, please do get in touch.