Journalism & Copywriting
When Lush’s former sister company, B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful, gave me what they called an ‘impossible’ brief to write imaginative sales copy for their winter brochure that had to be Christmas themed, have a glamorous, Doris Day style, and make them laugh, I said, ‘Yes’. They loved what I came up with and used it as an exemplar for the rest of their freelance writing team.
If you’re looking for a writer or editor to make your product or organisation zing, whether digitally or in print, I might be your man (well, woman, actually). A career that’s spanned features writing and commissioning editor roles for newspapers including the Guardian, the Daily Express and The Times Educational Supplement; and jobs as a senior web editor, media and public relations chapess and copywriter for organisations as diverse as the British Council, Freeserve (Wanadoo), Help the Aged and Hotel Indigo, means I can spin straw to gold. The more intriguing and creative the project the better.
Justina brings expertise, professionalism, precision, good humour and creativity to every project.Ben Verinder, Director, Chalkstream Communications
Nightingale
I’ve never heard the nightingale sing
though he starts on the same day each year,
though he comes to the pool each evening.
‘What did he sound like?’ I asked the poet who heard.
‘You can’t put it into words,’ she said,
adding, ‘piercing like light’. Then I thought
of a star running down my throat.
Published in Her Wings of Glass (Second Light Publications, 2014)
A Wire to Grief
When you flash upon me,
yanking the voice from my throat,
I’m usually peeling potatoes
or combing my just-woken hair
or, worse, in bed with my not-quite-lover
who’s helped pull me clear.
And you freeze me: peeler,
hairbrush, almost-lover in hand,
See ‘SHOW FULL POEM’ to see full work
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