Why did you choose to become a freelancer?
I didn't, really. From the age of 14 I knew that I wanted to make a living writing about music; the fact I do so as a freelancer is incidental.
If you trained, where? If not, how did you become a freelancer?
Untrained. I'm a section editor as well as a writer - when people approach me for work it's the quality of their copy I'm interested in, not their qualifications. Happily, I've found plenty of commissioning editors who seem to feel the same way.
Do you specialise in any particular field and what areas do you write about?
Music would be the specialist area, but I also enjoy writing about television - and columns (the writing of columns, obviously, not about them. Beyond Nelson's, I couldn't name you a single one. I'd be rubbish).
Which publications have you been published in?
Venue magazine chiefly, but also the Guardian, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph and the National.
Which articles, in which publication, are you the most proud of?
Glastonbury '98 in the Wiltshire Times - it was my first; anything in the Daily Telegraph - then my parents don't have to seek out a publication they never read before saying, 'Well done, dear'.
What are the best and worst aspects of freelancing?
I've had plenty of moments freelancing that qualify among the finest of my life, work-related or otherwise. In the last couple of months I've talked Stax soul with Booker T. Jones and had Mary Wilson sing 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love' down the phone to me. How many other jobs offer that?
Worst? Does this answer ever vary? No sick pay, no holidays.
Do you have any interesting anecdotes in relation to your experience as a freelancer?
One man's interesting is another man's 'The Now Show', so I wouldn't like to say.
Finance reporter - property
