Freelance Journalist Focus: Rob Kemp

The Focus is a chance for freelance journalist members of www.journalistdirectory.com to tell colleagues, editors and PRs (in our separate newsletter from www.featuresexec.com) a bit more about their work and experience. If you'd like to take part email us on news@dwpub.com.

This week (pictured, right): Rob Kemp

What do you write about?

Fatherhood, fitness and football if you need to file me under a subject letter. I’m editor-at-large for the Dad’s magazine FQ and I’ve also written fatherhood-focused pieces for the Family section of The Guardian along with a number of parenting titles. I cover fitness, weight loss and men’s lifestyle and health issues as a contributing editor to Men’s Health magazine and website (www.menshealth.co.uk) and I do a bit of football writing for Four Four Two. Also in the past few months I’ve written on the secret life of stand-up comedy venues, a feature asking ‘Who would want to become a full-time dog walker?’ and a piece for a South African magazine on Jody Scheckter’s eco-farming methods - so you could say I’m a bit of a dabbler.

Where are we likely to see your work?

Men’s Health in the UK, Australia, South Africa and India. I was senior writer there before going freelance and I also contribute regularly to their website and to Best Life magazine - which is Men’s Health for us greying types. I do a monthly local interest feature in The Green magazine in West London and of course the dad’s mag I co-edit - FQ magazine (www.fqmagazine.co.uk) where I write, edit and commission fatherhood-focused features. I also get to ‘big up’ some of the titles I work for by appearing on national and local radio - for no fee - at a regular occurrence.

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

For The Guardian I interviewed inmates at Dartmoor prison who’d set up a scheme recording bedtime stories for their children. I went in there half thinking that the prisoners were just taping escape plans but soon realised that this project was seriously changing lives, giving hope and helping to cut re-offending figures. I wrote about the birth of my son which got me into doing fatherhood pieces and I also once spent a week at an old folk’s home in a bid to find out why women out-live men. The interviewees I met there were amazing people, very wise, very humble and of course very, very old. The female secret to longevity seemed to be down to keeping active, talking openly about your anxieties and drinking sherry. I learned a lot. I also interviewed Ronnie Biggs about 15 years ago on the subject of packing a suitcase in a hurry. It still makes me laugh now.

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

‘At Home with Osama Bin Laden’ would be quite a coup. Also I used to a joke about doing a feature at Men’s Health called something like ‘Dead Men’s Fridges’. It would be a photo piece opening up the refrigerators of men who’d died prematurely due to obesity and poor dietary habits and so exposing the causes. It a subject matter that fascinates me (obesity, not fridges). I’m fortunate that I get to interview a lot of men who’ve dramatically changed and probably saved their own lives by ditching their bad habits and losing weight. They’re an inspirational bunch.

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

eBay would be a starting point. My only other job before this was re-stringing tennis rackets by hand in a sports shop. Good for ‘What’s My Line’ but not exactly golden handshake material.

If we gave you £1,000, how would you spend it?

On a decent chair for the desk I spend too long sat at, upgrading my website www.robkemp.org.uk - and on a flight to San Francisco for me and the family. Never been but it sounds like an ideal venue for a press trip-anyone?

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

Books. At the moment Michael Palin’s diary from the Python Years seems to be taking me more time to read than it took him to live and a Teach Yourself Polish book and cassette. Magazines: Men’s Health, FQ, US Esquire, Best Life and a friend in the USA - a great source of quality writing and ideas (the US that is, not the friend) has sent me a latest copy of Draft magazine. It’s a mag all about beer drinking, beer history and beer people including Top 10 female brewers. Don’t do blogs really but Dadslabs.com is a must - it’s a US TV-channel-cum-website for fathers where they experiment with breast pumps and road-test buggies and the like. Football365 is my homepage.