About me

I studied American Studies at Nottingham University because it meant that I got to study in America for a year. My degree was brilliant because I was able to study a diverse range of topics, such as blues music, hip hop and Hollywood, Beat writers and slave autobiographies.

I've wanted to be a teacher since I was 18. Most of my jobs have involved working with young people. I was a counsellor on Camp America one summer, where I worked with disadvantaged children in New Hampshire. They taught me a lot about basketball and I taught them about soccer (that was a particularly short session).

Favourite reads

Mostly American literature, including Charles Bukowski poetry, American Pastoral by Philip Roth and modern writers like Jonathan Franzen and Jonathan Safran Foer. Moving away from the American theme, A Clockwork Orange is one of my all-time favourite books. I also love Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night, Sunday Morning and it’s based in Nottingham!

When I was younger I was obsessed with Judy Blume books. ‘Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself’ was one of my favourites. The Railway Chidren by Edith Nesbitt and Barry Hines’ A Kestrel for a Knave still never fail to make me cry.