I am a journalist, author, editor and translator (Spanish-English) with a background in music and arts journalism. My work appeared in a range of publications, from Smash Hits to The Times. I was music, then books and later senior editor, of Time Out magazine (London) from 1980-1988. I spent much of the 1990s as a national newspaper sub-editor (copy editor), for The Daily Mirror, The Daily Express, The Observer, The Sunday Times and elsewhere. I published a novel, Hype! (1990), Queer Noises (1995), the first Rough Guide to Corfu and the Ionian Islands (1997), and also worked as a freelance editor on books on popular culture for, among others, Andre Deutsch, Aurum, Essential Books, Omnibus and Virgin. The publication of The Stars Over Paxos (1995) and the Rough Guide led me into travel journalism. My work has appeared in Condé Nast Traveller (UK), Elle, The Guardian, The Independent and Independent on Sunday, The Sunday Express and elsewhere. In 1999, I moved from London to Ronda in Spain. There I wrote Essential Gaudí (2001), and the Thomas Cook Guide to Seville and Andalucía (2003). I was also a contributor/editor on three editions of the Eyewitness Guide to Mallorca and the Balearics, and two editions of the Eyewitness Guide to Seville and Andalucía. My researches enabled me to write Andalucía – A Cultural History (2008). I also began translating Spanish texts – fiction, non-fiction and, most recently, a poetry project – into English. In 2008, I moved to the Greek island of Skopelos. Here I wrote the travelogue Space Travel for Beginners (2010) and also Athens (2012), a cultural history of the modern city. I was also commissioned by the British Film Institute to write a book about Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven (2011). I continue to freelance, translate and work on other projects, and am currently researching a book in the footsteps of Lawrence Durrell in his The Greek Islands. Extracts from my most recent books are available at www