A Portfolio Career

A couple of years ago, I was longlisted for The Asham Award and attended one of their development courses. It ran at Sussex University over two days and included a group session with an agent (Rupert Heath) and a one-to-one detailed analysis of each writer's career. I looked at my CV and apologised for the scattered nature of the things I had achieved. I work for a Conservation Trust, I write, I push out some bread and butter journalism. I have even had my own antique shop, run a pathology practice's secretarial team, been a political activist and worked in guiding.

'Ah,' said my tutor. 'That is what's called a portfolio career.'

What a lovely spin on my scrappy past. It sounds so much more professional.

In that light, I was proud to see the cover of the Penguin anthology The Map of Me that will appear in November. This will be a very special inclusion for me because Asian Invisible is really the first time I have tackled, in writing, my mixed heritage. Then, with my conservation head on, I am very chuffed with the new copy of Wolf Print, the official magazine of The UK Wolf Conservation Trust (http://www.ukwolf.org/) I have recently been appointed Assistant Editor for the magazine and spent many hours recently reducing a forty page report on lynx and wolves in Croatia into a two page document. Note to self - do not take forty loose pages into a windy garden. Alas, the lynx had to go, but the results were still informative and technical enough to please the academics, open enough to please that great demographic: the public. I have also been impressed with the writing, photography and sculpture workshops being organised for children at The Trust. I am passionate - make that obsessed - about wolves. I have seen them have an incredibly calming influence on even the most difficult children. It must be those marble eyes. Michelle Paver is running the writing workshop - quite an incentive for children to attend.

Back to short stories, flashes and the portfolio career. At least I am never bored.