Speaking

Below are some Keynote talks of which I’ve done variations of at workshops, conferences or literary festivals.

Many centre around modern views of love and relationships, because this was the topic of my first two books. I’ve also done inspirational talks on endurance sport and getting out of your comfort zone because this is what my later, more wholesome book focussed on!

More recently I’ve gone to more corporate audiences with talks and panels on how to pitch to the media. If you have your own ideas, feel free to contact me.

This Girl Ran: From Party Girl to GB Triathlete

“Four years ago I wouldn’t even walk to the tube in the rain in case it ruined my hair. Two years later I was fixing punctures in hail storms and swimming in freezing lakes and training for World Championships triathlon.”

This talk is based on my latest book This Girl Ran: Tales of a Party Girl Turned Triathlete. It’s the story of breaking away from my cosy lifestyle of cocktail bars and high fashion and toughening up through outdoor sport.

It all started when I joined a running club. At my first race I didn’t even own a backpack so I turned up with my kit (i.e. make up bag) in a designer tote bag. The closest thing I had to ‘outdoor clothes’ was last season’s wardrobe downgraded to casual wear.

Driven by a desire to push personal boundaries, I took on increasingly tougher endurance challenges until in 2015 I qualified to represent GB in my age group at World Championships Triathlon. This talk is both funny and inspirational and shows we can all do more than we think we can.

How to Pitch to the Press

With 15 years experience as a journalist I’ve worked on all the media platforms from radio, television, newspapers, magazines and digital. Knowing what makes a story is instinctive to me.

As a journalist and producer, I received dozens of pitches from PRs and entrepreneurs daily, vying for publicity, but only a handful were successful. As an author I also had to pitch myself to the press, and now I’m a publicist myself I’m the one knocking on journalist’s doors.

Using real-life examples from pitches and press releases I’ve received, and pitches I’ve sent myself, I give the inside track on how news and features are planned and when, how and to whom to pitch a story.

Writing Memoir

There is more to writing a memoir than telling a true story. Through my own examples and those of other well known memoirs, I unveil the techniques for channeling the complex chain of real-life events into meaningful story arcs (yes even when memory is an issue!).

I’ve devised a unique memoir writing course drawing on my own success as a writer of two memoirs and one narrative non-fiction. I cover how to make a story more commercial, the methods I used to structure my books and summarise the essential legal things you need to know when writing about real people and events. 

Screw The Fairytale: The New Rules of Modern Relationships

This talk is based on my second book, Screw The Fairytale: A Modern Guide to Sex and Love, in which I researched modern models of relationships as alternatives to conventional marriage. I visited a polyamorous commune, mixed with men on a ‘wife finding’ tour in Ukraine, interviewed couples in open relationships, joined a networking group of sperm donor mothers who had given up on men altogether and interviewed life-long bachelors, a-sexuals, married couples who live apart, psychologists and anthropologists.

All in pursuit of the answer to whether happily-ever-after can ever work in a modern age of independence?

We use cookies to give you the best online experience. By agreeing you accept the use of cookies in accordance with our cookie policy.

Privacy Settings saved!
Privacy Settings

When you visit any web site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Control your personal Cookie Services here.

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

In order to use this website we use the following technically required cookies
  • wordpress_test_cookie
  • wordpress_logged_in_
  • wordpress_sec

For perfomance reasons we use Cloudflare as a CDN network. This saves a cookie "__cfduid" to apply security settings on a per-client basis. This cookie is strictly necessary for Cloudflare's security features and cannot be turned off.
  • __cfduid

  • __ga

Decline all Services
Accept all Services