That queer punk media activist! Longtime guerrilla journalist and documentarian (ex-IndyMedia; currently working on building local autonomous media).
I was taught the principle of “do no harm, take no shit” at the age of 11 when I was pulled from an abusive school environment and educated at home by my anti-authority working class mother (for whom I credit for my intersectional feminism and anti-capitalism). On my very first demonstration as a teenager, she was marching beside me.
I later applied that D.I.Y. punk ethic to working on indie zines, books, and guerrilla video — documenting demonstrations, marches, movements (and the policing against them) and interviewing the likes of Kate Wilson, Prem Sikka, Teresa Hayter, Peter Tatchell, Shami Chakrabarti, Richard Murphy, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, in addition to numerous campaigners, academics, and activists. I presented screenings of these anti-capitalist and anti-fascist D.I.Y. documentaries all over the world, earning a listing as a “public enemy” by fascist doxxing site Redwatch.
Nonetheless, I continued to organise anti-racist events and helped to launch and run community projects and non-profits in both Britain and North America –- hosting, chairing, and speaking at festivals, conferences, and events from Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada) and Huddersfield University (UK) to the Non-Violence Festival (Canada) and the Festival of Debate (UK), while writing for various websites, zines, and newspapers, in addition to appearing numerous times for the BBC and writing for established commercial newspapers during an uneasy relationship with establishment media.
I continue to write while working in digital media and technology for non-profits, and am an unpaid carer for my partner (who has Long COVID), living in social housing as a member of Acorn and the IWW.
Still trying to “do no harm, take no shit,” sticking to such principles has cost me many connections and opportunities for income over the years, so suffice to say I welcome work offers, especially for worthwhile causes.