About your journalism

What do you write about?

Mainly business; all sizes, ages, sectors, and issues, but will never turn down an editor’s request. Consequently, I also write on health, education and training, careers, finance, and lifestyle.     

Where are we likely to see your work?

Director, Financial Mail, Edge, Entrepreneur Country, Hays Journal, Employee Benefits, Daily and Sunday Express.  

What’s the most memorable work you’ve done?

My most memorable interview was with business management revolutionary Ricardo Semler for Money magazine, and the craziest – and most fun – assignment was ghostwriting the wrestling autobiography Pure Dynamite.

What interview or feature would you love the chance to do?

A profile interview with Professor Brian Cox; Lancashire’s very own North Star.

About you and PRs

Where do you source ideas for articles?

The old fashioned way; by being nosy, and increasingly through social media, especially CubeSocial.com, a CRM platform with amazing search features.

How can PRs be useful to you?

By really understanding my feature brief and finding the perfect expert or case study for it.  

How and when do you like them to get in touch?

Email or telephone, but preferably not both on the same day.

Do you find press conferences, trips, parties and other events useful or an interruption?

Living 200 miles from London where most of these events tend to take place, attending means a whole day out of the office, so often an interruption.

If you could make one change to the way PRs deal with you, what would it be?

The vast majority are brilliant; perhaps the only gripe is having press releases read out to me over the phone before being emailed to me.                                       

About you

How would you pay the bills if you weren’t a journalist?

I’d sharpen my fairly average photography skills and try to flog my pictures.

If we gave you £1000, how would you spend it?

Selfishly, I’d upgrade my computer first and then divide the rest between my favourite ‘kids and animal’ good causes.  

Do you tweet? Why, why not?

Yes, like a demon – @alisonbcoleman.

What books are on your bedside table, magazines in your bag, or blogs on your screen?

S.J. Watson’s ‘Before I Go To Sleep’, plus the mandatory biography of anyone interesting, especially from history, which at the moment happens to be Anne of Cleves – fourth wife of Henry VIII (yes, it is a short one).

Regular magazine reads include The Week, BBC Good Food and Lancashire Life, while the Harvard Business Review is where I go to get my regular blog fix. My own blog is at www.alisonbcoleman.wordpress.com.