At one point in December, about a month after I had moved to the tiny office run by this black-hearted publishing concern, I had gone for one of my lengthy walks around the pier at midday when I got a call from the Ely office to say that the CEO of the House had turned up unexpectedly at the office in London and wanted to know why I wasn’t there. I gave an excuse and made haste back to my post. Once I arrived on the 33rd floor, I was accosted by a tall, young Indian man dressed in an outrageous polyester suit that was so shiny I could see my face in it, iridescent gold trainers, and was wearing shades that shielded his eyes (even indoors and in December). read more

It is difficult, and probably unnecessary, to describe the existential panic that descends on you once you are cast loose from university to fend for yourself in the adult world. In my case, the general misery that descends with the realisation that you are going to have to be responsible for your own fuck-ups from now on was compounded with a series of personal crises. In a pinch, I accepted a job offer from a friend to be a housekeeper in Colorado for a couple of months, and then spent the rest of the year Kerouacking about the Americas, taking a sabbatical from reality and generally putting off sorting my life out for a little while. I applied for a few postgrad places but didn’t get close to getting in anywhere thanks to my fluffed Finals results, and returned to the UK in the Summer of ’17 to try and blaze some path as a freelance journalist/editorialist/content writer/lion tamer/any old busybody in the London literary scene, more as a default than a last resort. read more