NORTH EAST ENGLAND · WRITER · RESEARCHER · PERFORMER · FACILITATOR
Imagination at the Edges
Writing on systems, craft, leadership, creativity, and how to live an imaginative life.
I am an educator, researcher, performer, and writer living on the salt-weathered coast of North East England with my husband and two children. After twenty years working in higher education leadership, research, and management, I decided to open a new chapter, return to my deep passion for creativity, and set out on a journey to live an imaginative life.
Having led large teams, taught young adults, and managed multi-million-pound portfolios, I know that to seek out new futures and new worlds, we need the time and space to step away from immediate pressures and day-to-day demands so that we can look to the future, imagine what’s possible, and reclaim our purpose.
My work and practice is defined by two landscapes: the bottle kilns of Stoke-on-Trent where I grew up, and the industrial coast of Teesside where I now live with my family. Coming from the Potteries, I learned early on that industry and creativity are not opposites, but parts of the same gritty, beautiful system. I fear, though, that the relentless churn of modern living and modern organisations means that we don’t always allow ourselves the time necessary to imagine, create, and think otherwise.
As a gay man, a husband, and a father from a post-industrial town, I have felt like I’ve navigated the world from the edges. In a way, it has allowed me a unique vantage point and to see systems and cultures from the outside. This has caused me to seek out the unwritten rules of a room, to challenge the way things have always been done, and, crucially, to spot the hidden potential within systems and to design new, innovative and inclusive systems, processes, and spaces.
Working in a messy space between systems and leadership theory, queer and industrial heritage, practices of ritual and rest, and a DIY punk ethos, my work and practice looks at new ways of living and working. It is about reclaiming perspective in an increasingly busy world. It is about resisting burnout and giving weight to reflection and rest. And it’s about restoring a shared sense of purpose and imagining lives, organisations, places, and worlds worth inhabiting.
