Addiction and families

I have been working with Demos on a research project that looks at how a problematic relationship with alcohol among at least one parent can impact on parenting and children’s perceptions of alcohol. This includes assessing the impact of ‘family-based interventions’ and the extent to which they focus on parenting support and preventing the transference of problem behaviour to the children of alcoholics.

It is a theme I have been researching for some time for my debut novel, Twisted Ladder, is being represented by the Dystel & Goderich literary agency. It is a study of addiction, and its hereditary implications.

You can read more here about the Demos project.

The Golden Age of French cinema - and other stories

The summer edition of the Invest in France journal is now out. It is the first that I have put together. I chose to focus on French cinema partly because of the success of The Artist, a film that I can't imagine having been made elsewhere, and also to recognise the growing numbers of foreign filmakers turning to France, among them Britain's Ken Loach. I also enjoyed discovering more about the French water cluster in the South of France after we chose Languedoc Roussillon as our focus region.