About

Making it up as I go along.

My career in journalism happened by chance. I arrived in Lebanon in 1998 after three years teaching in Japan. The plan was to stay just long enough to see Beirut, Baalbek and Byblos before continuing east overland towards the new life I imagined for myself in Beijing, where I was hoping to relocate.

Instead, I stayed in Beirut for twenty years.

Lebanon became more than my base; it became my life, and along the way I built a career as a writer and editor, working across newspapers, magazines, television, books and commissioned editorial projects. My work has appeared in publications including Wallpaper*, DestinAsian, Post Magazine, the New York Times and the Financial Times.

Much of what I’ve written has grown out of a fascination with place: cities, architecture, travel, culture and the people who shape them. That has led to a series of non-fiction books, countless articles and features, and editorial work for publications, publishers and other clients.

As for Beijing, well, I got there in the end.

Arriving just as the COVID lockdown began, I spent five years there as an editor, learning Mandarin and travelling as much as possible around a country that had occupied my imagination ever since I spent three years in Taiwan as a child.

These days I’m based in Bangkok. I still take on selected editorial and writing projects, but my time is now mostly devoted to writing novels.

Two things remain unchanged: my passion for Lebanon, and the fact that I’m still making it up as I go along.