About Me

In 1999, I graduated from the University of Warwick with a PhD in American literature and art history. For a decade I worked as an arts journalist (see below), and then in a variety of communications roles for UK universities.

In 2012, I published Lichfield Then & Now with The History Press, a book comprising historic photographs paired with contemporary colour versions of the same views.

I’ve recently completed The Female Rake: Peg Woffington’s Scandalous Life on the Georgian Stage: a biography of an actress who was known for her cross-dressed portrayals of fashionable men. I’ve presented talks about Peg to academics (at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and St Hugh’s College, Oxford) and to general audiences, including one at Bromley House Library in Nottingham.

I’m a Trustee of The Johnson Society (Lichfield) and a member of the Aston University Archives Advisory Board. In 2021, I was elected to the Royal Historical Society as an Associate Fellow.

My work has been recognised in several competitions. An essay I wrote about Peg’s travesty performances won the Society for Theatre Research’s New Scholar’s Prize in 2020, and The Female Rake was shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize (now the Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize) in 2022.

I’m currently working on a book about John Vanbrugh and the cultural revolution that changed a nation. When I’m not writing, I’m usually serving my feline overlord or at the opera with my husband.