I started researching and writing my first book, Good Girl Deprogramming, in 2019 after 20 years as an organisational psychologist (a psychologist for businesses and their people). I’d seen many ways in which women struggled to find their place, assert their authority, and be recognised for their expertise — I saw it too frequently and …
A slip on the ski slopes proved to be a lucky break for Teesside engineer-turned-author Fiona Erskine. After a career spanning 30 years at the forefront of chemical engineering, Fiona decided to put pen to paper and create a jet-setting explosives expert — and that expert would be a woman. It took a skiing accident …
Success for a writer rarely arrives like an inter-city express. More often, if it arrives at all, it’s had a clunky journey beset by unscheduled stoppages, the literary equivalent of sheep on the line. The metaphor is appropriate for one who grew up in a former station master’s house beside the memory of a railway …
It was during the Miners’ Strike of 1984 that the paths of filmmaker Ken Loach and pitman’s daughter Heather Wood crossed. Ken says: “We were filming in the colliery club in Easington where women had set up one of the many canteens that provided free meals for striking miners and their families.” Heather and her …
They say ‘opportunity is a bird that never perches’ and that is certainly the case for Bob the pigeon and his Gateshead owner. When Bob set off for a race from Guernsey in June 2022 to head back home to Blaydon, neither the unsuspecting bird nor his owner could have known they were about to …
Born in Newcastle and given his big break in Sunderland, music and tech mover and shaker Harvey Lee will always have a soft spot for the North East. It was AC/DC, fuelled by flat-cap wearing Geordie frontman Brian Johnson, who inspired the academic flop’s colourful future career. And Harvey will be hoping the region’s next …
David Almond and Julia Green have lived on their quiet Tynemouth street since November 2022 and if ever a place could be called a house of stories it’s surely theirs. Bookending the upstairs landing are studies — one each, with desk, writerly paraphernalia and personal flourishes. Julia’s has a bookcase with David’s published titles and …
Independent bookshops so often form the backdrop of romantic films, such as Notting Hill, and their popularity on the high street is growing. Despite kindles and the like, the Booksellers Association reports the number of independent bookshops across the UK has reached its highest point for 10 years. The North East is blessed with passionate …
On the day, my book, How To Build Your Own Record Pressing Plant: The True Story of Press On Vinyl was published last November, I found myself sitting in the Teesside vinyl record factory’s boardroom looking across the TeesAMP Business Park as dusk settled over Middlesbrough’s less famous – but equally iconic – Newport Bridge. …
@2024 The QT All Rights Reserved. Built by Nebula Labs
