Writing

My review of Nnedi Okorafor's Young Adult novel Akata Witch appears in April's edition of Brooklyn Rail - you can find it online here.


In March, I covered the literacy work of New York Presbyterian Hospital for Manhattan's local news site DNAInfo.com. See my photo story here.

I've written on Austria for the Insight series of travel guides. You can find the books here and here. The online Insight Guide to Austria can be found here. There's further travel writing, from my recent South American project, online at La Vida Idealist and Living In Peru.

My piece on education initiatives in the UK cafe trade, which touches on the contribution of refugees to British cafe culture, appeared in the February 2010 Essential Cafe magazine - see p.27 of the online version, here.

From 2007-2008 I reviewed gigs by up-and-coming bands for the BBC’s in-house blog Ariel. The blog isn't available to the public but you can find excerpts here and here.

In 2010, I reviewed performance pieces for Claire Massey's blog, The Fairytale Cupboard. You can find my reviews of the Playbox adaptation of The Bloody Chamber here, and of ZooNation's Into the Hoods, here.

In my academic days, I wrote about the history of Austria. One article, ‘Vienna 1900 as Lieu-de-mémoire’, appears online here, and you can find some of my reviews for East European Jewish Affairs here.

Threats Made in Jest is a story which came to me while watching Bob Monkhouse’s TV obituary a few years ago. It was an ABCTales Pick of the Day in March last year.

Children’s Stories
The Gates of Hercules, a novel for middle grade readers, features evil twins, black snow and several Italian meals. It’s currently being considered for representation by literary agents.

You can read some of my early writing for young children on the web:

Shark with the Mind of a Rabbit Something very strange has happened to Ellie’s pet rabbit…This story won an ABCTales Children’s Radio Prize.

Polly and the Frog I made this story up on the spot when faced with a class of excited children and nothing to hand except a couple of toys, and it was subsequently broadcast on Stratford Community Radio. It’s always good if a story includes the word ‘Ribbit’.

M.E. Lehmann...who he?
When I started putting work online, I was using the name M.E. Lehmann, to honour my mum and her dad, who have done so much to support me in my writing...Now that the whole world knows I'm a Finch, Lehmann is no more - but you can still find some of my work under the 'M.E. Lehmann' byline!