Writing from Portugal
My monthly column for The Portugal News
Each month, I write for The Portugal News about the experience of being a writer in Portugal, the creative life that has unfolded here, and the people, places and collaborations that are influencing and giving it shape. Each column is rooted in something distinctly Portuguese, drawn from its culture, traditions or landscape, using it as a lens through which to reflect on writing, creativity, identity and life in Portugal.
Latest Column
AUGUST 2026
The Dream That Never Stops Chasing Us
On lace, longing and the dress that carried a story into the world.
The story behind the red dress created with Portuguese designer Catarina Castanho for the launch of The Red Silk Dress, and a reflection on lace, creativity and the dreams that continue to travel with us as our lives change.
From the Archive
JULY 2026
The Woman Who Stands and the Woman Who Flows
Art, rivers, and a creative collaboration with Swedish artist Ingela Johansson
A reflection on the Tagus, creative thresholds and an artistic collaboration that grew from The Red Silk Dress into RED: Seven Emotional Thresholds.
When does life ask us to stand firm, and when does it ask us to trust the current?
MAY 2026
Where Conversation Becomes Culture
The First Red Silk Salon: A Tertúlia at The Vintage
A reflection on Lisbon’s tertúlia tradition, the first Red Silk Salon and what can happen when art, literature and conversation are brought together at a human scale.
In a world of panels, platforms and performance, have we forgotten how to create spaces where conversation itself can become culture.
APRIL 2026
At the Station of Arrival: Where The Red Silk Dress Entered the World
Santa Apolónia, saudade and the meaning of arrival
A reflection on launching The Red Silk Dress at Santa Apolónia, Portugal’s first railway station, and on the deeper resonance of arrivals, departures and belonging.
Do our stories simply enter the world, or can places in which we release them deepen what they come to mean?
MARCH 2026
The Quiet Power of a Printed Book
On paper, presence, and the life of a story
A reflection on receiving the first printed copies of The Red Silk Dress in Portugal, and on why physical books still matter in a digital age.
What is it about a printed book that allows a story not only to be read, but to be held, remembered and lived with?
FEB 2026
Finding the Thread
Place, Identity and Belonging in The Red Silk Dress
A reflection on the origins of The Red Silk Dress, the role of place in shaping identity, and the long creative journey from Cambodia to Portugal.
At its heart is a question that sits beneath both the novel and my own experience: what happens to the parts of ourselves that become buried as we grow up, and what might begin to emerge when we finally listen to them?
JAN 2026
The Jewellery We Carry
Filigree and the Stories We Hold Against Our Skin
A reflection on Portuguese filigree, memory and the intimate objects through which we carry pieces of our past into the present.
Can the things we hold closest to the body become quiet guides back to parts of ourselves we thought we had left behind?
DEC 2025
A Home Between Monsoons and Saudade
The Story Portugal Helped Me Finish
A reflection on the journey from Southeast Asia to Portugal, and on how place, pace and belonging shaped the final years of writing The Red Silk Dress.
Do some places simply become home, or do they help us become the person capable of finishing what we came carrying?