Skip to content

About Kevin

I’m Kevin Weedon, a freelance writer living near Sacramento, California.

Kevin, with a twist of Limey

Kevin, a writer with a twist of Limey

An Englishman by trade, I moved to Davis, California in March 2005, to nurse my fiancée through breast cancer. Successful in this, we married later that year and the rest is history, and good history at that.

I’ve expanded my writing into some more specific arenas, keeping a blog entitled “An Englishman in Davis“; partly a journal of my life here and partly commentary on local happenings. I enjoy local life, take pleasure in the things that make the area what it is – vibrant, varied and vital.

More recently still, I’ve strayed into writing about beer, brewing and beer culture. Again, I keep a blog of my reflections, the ruminations of a Real Beer geek. This gives me great pleasure, as I’m able to explode the many myths about beer on both sides of “the pond”; those Americans who believe that British beer is weak, warm and flat, and those Brits who feel that American beer is like fizzy coloured water.

Experience, I believe, is the writer’s stock-in-trade, and since moving to California, I have had the good fortune to travel fairly extensively throughout the state, and much of the rest of the country. I enjoy travel, the excitement of new places and people, new experiences and the satisfaction of expanding my world.

Christine and I have worked our way up into the Pacific Northwest on several occasions, and I’ve taken great delight in the history of the area as well as in the culture and lifestyles so different from my own background back home in Blighty.

My other two major journeys across the States gave me plenty of opportunity to meet many people from different backgrounds. This has been part of the key to my understanding the differences (and similarities) between life in the UK and this American life to which I’m now committed.

My first trip, along US Highway 50, up through to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan proved to me (were there any doubt) that California is not America. There was Nevada and Utah, desert and mountains, new and romantic (at least to an Englishman!) The midwest, I discovered, is a very different creature because of the land, history and background of the settlers. Here’s the country that brought to life the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the same tales that were a part of my education about the growth of America.

The second trip I took alone, driving from Michigan, south through Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and via Texas through the Southwest. Here was new country again – Southern pride and hospitality with big, open country to match the open hearts and good home cooking. I followed Route 66 as best I could through New Mexico to California, falling in love with the desert again before braving the busy route north to home.

Fuller of understanding than before, I commit myself to writing about this, my new American life, with its quirks and diversity.

2009 09 29 Kevin Weedon biography Comments (0) Permalink

Writing about Everything

These days I introduce myself as a freelance writer, a label that frequently baffles folk, who then ask “So what do you write about?” The short answer is “Anything”, but the long answer involves a little history.

I began writing seriously at college in Nottingham, England. I wrote an article on the history of haiku for an English program, a friend of mine read it and suggested I submit it to a friend of hers, who ran a magazine in London. This I did, and was delighted to be paid for a series of three articles expanding on the original. I was vain enough to keep a copy of the magazine, not vain enough to remember the name, nor to bring the magazine with me when I moved away from England.

In the world of business, I have written training materials,  business newsletters, marketing material, web content and more. As an editor I have helped business to get the most out of the written word in whatever format, and as a coach, have helped many people to find their voice in their own writing.

I write a blog about beer,  maintain an occasional blog about my experience as an Englishman in California and am a contributing editor and administrator for the website Everything2.

Everything2 is a website where anyone can write about anything – it was a collaborative encylopædia before there was wikipedia, and a writer’s community where poets and creative writers alike could support one another and sharpen their skills. Here I wrote (and still write) about the many and various things that intrigue me. I’ve written about people and places and things, from the lives of saints to places I’ve visited, through factual and creative writing. For a long time that was my journal, a meeting-place for friends, and above all, a place where I could garner feedback that helped me improve my writing.

In short, I have long loved writing, and I continue to do so. Now I’m writing about my American life, with a twist. One last word, though – please excuse me if I seem to continue in my old habits. For me, colour is spelled with a “u”. That is a hint of the Limey.

2009 09 29 Kevin Weedon writing Comments (0) Permalink