Writing
I do gud riting 2
The connection that any business craves with its customers starts with a story. A story like all good stories. One with a beginning, a middle, and while not an end, certainly a future. Your story needs to connect your audience with you - your characters, your setting, the arc of your narrative, the image of the world you inhabit and to emotionally invest them enough to care what happens next.
What that story is, and how we tell it, that is what I can do for you.
THE DREAM JOB... sadly it would only last 9 games as at the end of the 2003 season the club was sold to Roman Abramovich and it was all change. On the upside, although our team's contract was not renewed for the new season, the club were about to become one of the game's global elites.... and after a lifetime of winning virtually nothing, I was happy to trade the job for the league titles and Champions League victory that followed
My debut novel - 42 Days (written under my author's alias, AJ Roberts). What can I say? It is really rather good. Wish it had sold more, but there again, it isn't about wizards or celebrity chefs so I can't be too surprised. 42 Days is the often funny, sometimes touching, undeniably heartbreaking and ultimately redemptive story of a recovering cynic as he narrates the story of his son's life - from birth through to adulthood - in just 42 days. The most honest book about fatherhood, marriage and death you're ever going to read - brutal, funny, heartbreaking, inspiring, bleak and uplifting - all in the space of 6 weeks, taking place in the summer of 2002. https://www.amazon.co.uk/42-Days-J-Roberts/dp/1785890778
"Al Ahly vs Zamalek goes beyond fanatical. It is part football match, part political rally, part history lesson and generally a good excuse for the locals to hurl rocks at each other." FourFourTwo Magazine. https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/nationalism-desertion-and-devotion-why-al-ahly-vs-zamalek-more-game
Contributing author. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Blackpool-Barcelona-Footballs-Rivalries/dp/0007280807
To an even greater extent than my corporate design work, so much of my written work is covered by Non-Disclosure Agreements. Much of it is also really, really dull - especially out of context. I would be happy to discuss the work and provide references where possible, but I no longer have access to the material itself.
New York Punk Buyers Guide for Classic Rock Magazine. https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-new-york-punk-albums-you-need-in-your-record-collection
Classic Rock Magazine
Classic Rock Magazine feature on Max's Kansas City
Classic Rock Magazine feature on Max's Kansas City
Classic Rock Magazine feature on Max's Kansas City
Classic Rock Magazine feature on Max's Kansas City
I worked as a freelancer for M&IT Magazine for over five years under the then editor, John Keenan. I would have at least one full length (1500 to 2000 word) feature per issue, sometimes two and often numerous smaller news pieces. I also wrote advertorial sponsored supplements for the likes of the Egyptian Tourism Authority and Tourism Ireland I would be happy to discuss my travel work with M&IT and giver references, but with their online archives being relatively new, they do not go back far enough for me to be able to include links. As for hard copies, although I kept most issues when I still lived in the UK, they weren't amongst the things I shipped out when I moved to Australia.
My work for the football (soccer) pages of the UK's Daily Telegraph covered features in the build-up to international games as well as match and news reports from European games (including my experience of being tear-gassed out of the Rome derby following the game's abandonment)
