Meet the Team

Debbie Taylor is Editorial Director of Mslexia, which she founded in 1999. She has written for Oxfam, UNICEF, Anti-Slavery, WHO and others about women and social issues and worked as an editor for New Internationalist and Writing Women magazines. Her books include My Children, My Gold (Virago), a nonfiction travelogue about single mothers, and The Fourth Queen (Penguin), a novel set in a harem in 18th Century Morocco. Her latest novel, Herring Girl (Oneworld), a paranormal historical thriller set on the banks of the Tyne, came out in 2014. www.debbietaylor.co
Mad passion: getting down and dirty on her allotment
Secret indulgence: a Manhattan cocktail with fish and chips

Kay began life at Mslexia as a volunteer in 2013 and is now working as part of the admin team providing maternity cover. She has an English BA from the University of Lincoln and is a Co. Durham native. When she's not stuck behind tractors or herds of sheep on the roads (that's happened a few times) she enjoys travelling, her kindle and cups of tea. 
Mad passion: Music and Mojitos 
Secret indulgence: Trash TV

Françoise joined Mslexia in 2015 after several years working in legal publishing where she developed a love of working in Indesign. She mostly writes short stories, with faint dreams of one day publishing a collection. She is also chipping away at a novel and occasionally poets. Outside work she likes to read, write, go walking or running with her two huskies, and has a singer-songwriter alter-ego.
Secret indulgence: movies with dancing in them, strawberry Angel Delight and cult TV
Mad passion: live music, photography (looking at photos, not taking them), weird facts

Originally from the American foothill town of North Bend, made famous by its being the setting of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, Kris moved to Newcastle in 2007 and now lives in Whitley Bay. She has a degree in English from Western Washington University and an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University; her doctoral research explored the relationship between Deep Ecology and contemporary Western American literature. She is currently working on a collection of poems, and thinking about returning to essays (her first love).
Mad Passions: Trees, plants, birds, rocks, weather, gardening, books about plants, books about birds – anything nature related!

Secret indulgence: The Rachel Maddow Show and cheese

Originally from Chesterfield - a town famous for a very wonky church - Martha moved up to the North East in 2006. She has a degree in English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing, both from Newcastle University. She writes for children and young adults and currently has three unpublished novels in a drawer, plus a handful of picture book ideas. She began life at Mslexia as a volunteer in 2008 and we've struggled to get rid of her ever since! (Her words not ours). She lives in Newcastle with her partner, their daughter and two cats.
Mad passion: films, particularly if they are by Pedro Almodovar or Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Secret indulgence: Zoos. The best one she's been to is Berlin, worst (because the most exotic creature was a goat not because of conditions) Belgrade

Originally from a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, known for its carbonated beverage and zombie-infested TV show, Emily first came to Newcastle on an exchange programme with Northumbria University in 2009. She has a degree in English from Georgia State University and an MA in Creative Writing from Northumbria. She writes as E.M. Killaley, mainly short fiction, but also has a novel that’s been in the works for a while, and she works with a couple of small literary journals. She loves travelling, tea, gardening, and binge-watching Netflix.
Mad passion: Literary journals and any food involving potatoes
Secret indulgence: Bad disaster movies and wine

Isabel started with Mslexia in 1999, just after the publication of the first issue, when the Mslexia office was a garret flat in Jesmond (yes, really). Mslexia has moved three times since, occupying a top-floor garret office near the city wall, with cinders for insulation underneath the floor boards, and rooms in a building with a prison tower which dates back to 1291 and which had been a Friary, an ancient almshouse, a soup kitchen, and a museum in its former lives – before settling, for the moment, in its current home in a Georgian Terrace, the birth place of Cardinal Basil Hume.
Mad passion: Perhaps from the above, Iso has come to realise that history and architecture are passions, but she would have to add sailing and music
Secret indulgence: a long lie-in until 8.30am

Anna joined Mslexia in January 2015 as Business Development Manager. Anna joined Mslexia in January 2015 as Business Development Manager. Anna’s background working in the arts ranges from project management, marketing and fundraising for a number of arts organisations in the North East, but this is her first experience of working in the literary sector.
Mad passion: Theatre, and she regularly watches local productions, and acts in and directs amateur plays in Sunderland and Durham
Secret indulgence: constantly searching for the perfect handbag

Hailing from the sleepy border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Laura joined the Mslexia team in 2015 to tackle all things advertising. After graduating with a first class Journalism degree, she wrote for a lifestyle magazine for two years while penning her first novel. She’s now published by HarperCollins (under a not-so-secret pseudonym) and working on some other secret projects too—as well as studying for her Creative Writing MA at Northumbria University.
Mad passion: Ridiculous challenges. She’s been known to skydive, paraglide, scuba dive, jet ski, play zorb football, run a half-marathon, fly to Serbia, and learn to play professional blackjack—all in the name of a good magazine feature.
Secret indulgence: Beer gardens with friends, baking treats for the Mslexia team, or curling up with a good book.