Recent commissions include those for US magazine Smithsonian, The Daily Telegraph and Museums Journal. I am also working on an essay for London's Cole Gallery, on the illustrator, painter and sculptor Robert Nicol, who has an exhibition there next month; the show is based around the life and death of John Franklin, a little-known explorer whose crew died, and cannibalised each other, during a trip to the Arctic in the 1840s.

I've been interviewing lots of former NOTW journalists for Graham Bowley's forthcoming book on Murdoch while the former is in Afghanistan. In addition, we've now got around eight interviews up on MYMZK; please follow the site on Twitter here or mail us with interview suggestions at mail@mymzk.com.

MYMZK

What is MYMZK?

*Commissioned Andy Cole at EnterExit to come up with the design concept, something clean, simple and modern, with Imran Younis then building it in code from scratch. I update and manipulate the HTML with new material in Dreamweaver CS5.5, which helps keep the site as unique as I possibly can. Assuming you've not just left it, you can see the results here.

*The site is fully licensed via the Performing Rights Society (PRS). Delphine Seddon at Statham, Gill and Davies has provided legal advice while Ian Kynnersley has built an iPhone app from scratch. This and an email template have been designed along Andy's guidelines, and will follow the content. The app, once operational, will allow the download of new music along with clean, easy-to-read interviews, which ideally communicate a sense of the acts' local venues and interests.

So I've re-read a couple of novels from last year, seeing how they work. Read The Ask, Fiesta, The Road, alongside The Turn of the Screw, now working my way through Bleak House, hopefully moving on to the Tomalin biography afterwards, and Fitzgerald's short stories.

This Gary Lutz piece in The Believer on prose style is useful.  

Work-wise, have had commissions from The Guardian, Esquire UK, and am helping The New York Times journalist Graham Bowley research a book. I've been commissioned to write a catalogue for Rivington Street's RED gallery, and am likely to be doing quite a lot of freelance PR for various clients. 

These are some of my final news stories at The Independent before I went freelance at the beginning of December (since then, I have been commissioned by Esquire, am working on MYMZK and am pursuing new opportunities).

*Story off back of leaked correspondence between Leonardo owner and Dr Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, ahead of the gallery's major show;

*Call of Duty 3 approved by censors (followed by The Daily Mail);

*Shane Meadows lined up for Stone Roses film (followed by The Guardian, The Sun, NME, Metro, among others)

*Did Van Gogh die in unfortunate brush with fate (first journalist in the world to report; story subsequently published by hundreds of international media);

*Child visitors plummet to major museums;

*The Wallingers that were too wacky, even for him.

Recent stories (I am just going to include here those which I wrote about first)

*Turkey demands return of its "Elgin Marble" (followed by CNN)

*Sue Tilley moves out of Soho (followed on page three, The Evening Standard)
*Abbado/Grimaud fall out over "artistic differences" (subsequently profiled in the New Yorker and splashed by NYT Arts section)

*Tate staff complain of bullying (followed by The Evening Standard)
*Ford Madox Brown piece discovered (followed by BBC, Reuters, The LA Times, The Guardian)

*JG Ballard's house for sale (followed by The Guardian, The Evening Standard & BBC)
*Poetry Society slash funding (followed by The Guardian & BBC)
*Michelangelo discovered at Oxford college (followed by Huffington Post, BBC, and then a lot of international media)
*Short story campaign (part of rolling stories followed by The Guardian)
*Venice censorship (followed by The Daily Telegraph)

Have also been invited to become a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Some key stories so far this year (listed here so I don't forget).

*Covering the Brits, Baftas and Oliviers;

*Nationwide Arts Council cuts.

*Story about Dennis Hopper's art being pulled (reported ahead of/followed by LA Times, FT, NY Daily News);

*Quotes calling for Ai Weiwei's release (quotes used by The Guardian, Channel 4, and Der Spiegel);

*Story on new choreography in ballet (followed by The Telegraph);

*Interviews with Sir Nicholas Penny; Lenny Henry and Greg Dyke.

*Story on Yuri Gagarin statue (followed by Mail; later reported by The Guardian, The Mirror, BBC);

*Nice exclusives on CS Lewis, Kew, Pertwee, Anderson & Gold; Luminaire piece from a while ago, later cropping up in The Guardian.

Been a busy first month or two as arts correspondent. I guess highlights would be:

*Jack Thorne's play at the National;

*An interview with Mat Collishaw;

*Nigerian protests forcing cancellation of a Sotheby's auction (followed by The New York Times and the BBC);

*An interview with James Rhodes;

*Coverage of protests at the Turner Prize;

*Patrick Stewart's complaints about Broadway (followed by The Daily Express)

*Behind the scenes on Peter and the Wolf at the ROH, whose director, Tony Hall, I also interviewed;

*The suspension of the Royal Opera House's move North;

*A page three on Bob Marley;

*A splash on Joanna Yeates.