No purple prose here!

Despite an affinity for purple – even her hair has been purple – Lesley Morrissey hasn’t written purple prose since she was 12 years old.

“I had just written a beautiful wordy descriptive piece full of adjectives and imagery then my Dad read it. He used the phrase ‘you must learn to murder your children’ and explained that words had to have a purpose. That’s stuck with me ever since – and it took me years to discover that he’d pinched that quote from George Bernard Shaw!”

A love of words isn’t enough – an ability to wield a pen (or keyboard ) and produce results is a good part of the equation. However, it doesn’t stop there.

Back in the 1980s Lesley was responsible for the Dubai Duty Free newsletter (as well as a varied freelance career in feature writing from consumer to business). In the days before desk top publishing made layouts easy, she found herself working with some of the top advertising agencies, like J Walter Thompson and BBDO.

“These guys were experts at getting people to read their copy. They changed things I’d done during the paste up process and I wanted to know why. I began to learn about how people read – and found it fascinating. I’m still learning!”

Lesley has a unique expertise in making the words and pictures really work, particularly on the web.

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