I have been writing ever since, aged 6 or 7, my teacher Mrs Best was impressed by my use of ‘But the scar of fear was left long after they healed…’ in relation to a volcanic eruption (this is why good teachers matter even more in working class places!). I’m a stereotypical bard - I just love a good story.

I’ve online roleplayed since I was 13 but mostly written poetry, comics, short stories and blogs for my own benefit, to make sense of our weird world. I’ve never been published. Most recently I’ve applied my storytelling talents to telling the story of NMN, our place and the people who make it happen in a way I hope will be heard.

When I was in my early teens I created my first comic, a retelling of the death of my favourite Dragonball Z character Vegeta.

I have always been fascinated by the way comics use words and pictures to tell stories as it mimicked the way my own brain worked - never just words, never just pictures. I grew up secretly reading my brothers 2000AD comics, then graduated to manga and graphic novels which I used to illegally download because I couldn’t afford them. Sorry artists.

I even wrote my dissertation on how the comic book was just as valid an artform as traditional art, comparing Maus to Anne Frank’s Dairy and the work of Vincent Van Gough to the comic Epileptic. It’s the only reason I got a First so clearly I was on to something.

The wildcard of motherhood.

Sometimes being good at drawing is a curse because you are always being asked to draw something - I don’t mind so much when Jamie asks though!

Here are some of the things I’ve made for him or that we’ve worked on together. I’m dead lucky to have a creative and crazy kid whose imagination knows no bounds (even if minecraft is way too blocky for me).

I’ll also share the ways me and Jamie create together, using comics, cartoons and crafts to connect.

I met Pablo because his graphic design was so terrible I had to intervene and I’ve been designing MySpace and RP profiles since I was about 13. Millenials do digital skills hard.

I dreamed of being Beatrix Potter when I grew up but I knew that living alone with some rabbits in the Lakes wouldn’t work - it never stopped me drawing, journaling and writing about my life in comics.

I have never been a proper illustrator despite many years of trying to break into the space - my art was never commercial enough to sell and I am eternally unable to edit what I do into digestible portions.

I went to Brighton to study photography and they sang the Byker Grove theme song at me so I gave it up but I never stopped obsessively photographing the world around me.

I prefer weird analogue photography to digital and spent a lot of my late teens lurking in dark rooms (but as with all my work I used whatever I have to hand and can afford).