I'm a singer-songwriter and author based in Barcelona, Spain. I've written the music/songs for more than 12 London stage plays and musicals including The Children's Crusade and By Common Consent for the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, and Edward Bond's Stone for Gay Sweatshop at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

I wrote the songs for Dean, a musical biography of James Dean that ran in London's West End and in Japan, where The Takarazuka Revue produced the musical over several seasons. I've also worked in radio and television, and recorded a solo album for Decca Records, Living in the Shadow of a Downtown Movie Show.

In 1990 I started my own company, iT's Magazines, publishing magazines and books for English language teachers and students around the world. The company also designed websites, and developed video and audio resources for major ELT publishers. In 2013, I decided to take a break from the company and dedicate my time to writing.

I've written several ELT readers including Owl Hall (Macmillan) and The Green Room (Helbling) which won a Language Learner Literature Award in 2013. I'm one of the co-authors of Studio, the international course from Helbling Languages, and Beyond, the international secondary course from Macmillan Education. Together with Lindsay Clandfield, I created ExLT (Extreme Language Teaching) and published eBooks including English for the Zombie Apocalypse.

My father was a Latin professor and my mother a German teacher, so it wasn't a huge surprise that I became involved in language teaching. Apart from languages, my parents were both musicians and encouraged my interest in theatre for which I'm grateful. I have my brother to thank for my interest in magazines. He started a school magazine and I quickly followed his example.

Three cities have played an important part in my life — Edinburgh, where I grew up; London, where I started my music career; and Barcelona, where I started teaching and writing materials for teachers. Barcelona is also where I got married to Carlos and the place we currently call home.