This was a comic script I worked on for my final independent project in my third year. It was awarded a First Class Honours for this piece, and it is one I am currently going back and hoping to adapt and develop further.

Pre-Hysteria follows Leanne Sandler, a zookeeper at a normal zoo; that is a zoo with dinosaurs and other extinct animals from the past. However when one of the Deinonychus under her care is seriously injured, Leanne uncovers dark truths about the park, its owners and its denizens.

This story is very much formatted like a pilot for a potential series, and that's intentional. I wanted to write a script that was self contained enough, but could set up for future issues. Of course I am reworking the foundations of this piece, touching up some areas I thought I could have done better in. So keep an eye out for that.

I have also included panelling ideas and some reference images for the featured dinosaurs at the advice from my supervising instructor, which I have left included here.

With this story I wanted to tell a story about a dinosaur zoo, something that has been done... a lot. But I want to use this story and setting to explore ideas of animal welfare more as well as how companies and individuals interact with the animals.

Give it a read by clicking the image!

This short story was awarded a First Class Honours in the Popular Non-Fiction module of my third year course.

A short creative non-fiction piece I wrote for a graded assessment. Part auto-fiction and part historical fiction. I wrote it shortly after visiting the Jurassic Coast so wrote a piece inspired by the long history of the site and how I feel connected to it. 

I wanted to write a story from the point of view of an animal, and I felt very much drawn to the large Ichthyosaur, Temnodontosaurus, which was initially found by Mary Anning, the legendary palaeontologist who discovered a plethora of fossils from the Jurassic Coast. Very much my hero.

Anning also appears in the story as a Point of View character. The story itself is set in three time periods: The present where there is a first person narrator. The 1820s where Mary Anning is the point of view character and finally the Early Jurassic where we follow an Ichthyosaur as it swims through the ancient seas.

Give it a read by clicking the image!