About Mo

If someone had said to me a few years ago that “your creative work will ultimately be written as well as visual,” I would have been astonished. “Surely words are just for introductions or captions supporting my images,” I would have replied, but how wrong I should have been.

I am now writing two novels, ‘Gideon’s Game’ and ‘Accidental Murder’, as well as working on visual projects such as ‘Winter Chill’.

Does using text and images together make me bilingual? Sometimes I feel as though I am using a foreign language. Pictures and writing do seem to be kept separate when it comes to publication. But for me working creatively with both, they do feel very much intertwined. Some of my projects will be word led and others visually, but I do like to use both languages together.

I hope one day to have my novels appear as intended, with images extending ideas touched upon by the multitude of words. And vice versa for projects like Cockney Waters, where text helps to weave the story of my early life amongst evocative images of the River Thames waterside. Digital publication should make that possible, although the thrill of leafing through a hard paper copy is something that I secretly covet.

Home is on the coast in Devon and sometimes Cornwall, where I thrive with our four spaniels and my husband. When I was young, my life was split between the outdoors and my photographic darkroom. Now I am older it is shared between a small room with a computer and the sea.

I paint with light to make my pictures. I dab at a keyboard to make words. And I squeeze a mouse for both. When I was a child I was forced to write right handedly. Going digital has given my suppressed left hand the freedom it needed for creativity.

Biography

Born Wanstead Essex 1953.
Studied Canterbury College of Art and Newcastle University 1974/78.
Fellow in Photography Faculty of Art and Design Plymouth University 1978/81.
Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society from 1980.
Professional photographer and artist in that medium since.
My pictures have been exhibited in London and featured in magazines such as Devon Life and The Otter Valley Association newsletter where I have often provided the covers too.

Began to write commentary and introductions to visual projects ‘Cockney Waters’ and ‘My Great War Story’ in the late 20th Century, but writing is taking over as the Millennium progresses.
Started writing first novel "Gideon’s’ Game” in 2016, plus wrote short story ‘An Accidental Murder’ in 2017, which forms the next novel’s base.
Joined ‘Jane’s Girls’ 2016, best selling psychological thriller author Jane Corry’s writers’ group meeting for monthly for discussion and novel clinic.
Wrote first poetry “The Four Seasons Quartet” 2017 and “Ocean Quartet” still ongoing in 2018.
Began second novel ‘The Accidental Murderer’ in 2018 but have returned to being sensible for once and finishing ‘Gideon’s Game’ first.
‘Winter Chill’ is a photographic landscape project born from the stormy winters of climate change from 2015. It is very much ongoing, like its subject.
First novel 'Gideon’s Game' completed 2021.
Completed collection of six picture poems entitled 'Wily Old Trees’ in 2022.
Portraying radically changing landscape in the Lower Otter Restoration Project, LORP, where the River Otter floodplain is being transformed from a fresh to a saltwater habitat.