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Production Editor, Word Magazine. When Mike first climbed the four floors to Development Hell's N1 eyrie in spring 2007, he had been in the business of deleting stray apostrophes, dreaming up wince-worthy headline puns and intercepting potentially libellous mantraps for the best part of two decades.

Following a postgraduate course at the London College of Printing, his first publishing "gig" was with Popular Computing Weekly - despite not knowing an Atari ST from an Amiga 500. He'd like to think this was entirely unconnected with the fact that PCW didn't last long in the nascent and rapidly developing world of bits'n'bytes publishing. Next he found himself working for a series of trade titles - everything from CTN (that's the Have-I-Got-News-For-You-worthy Confectioner, Tobacconist & Newsagent, readers) to telly-biz weekly Broadcast via rag-trade bible Drapers Record.

Then, after a brief period spent helping set up "the world's first dedicated music bookshop" (Helter Skelter on London's Tin Pan Alley), he did freelance work for various magazines, including Q, Mojo, Vox and Select. This period came to a close with the offer of the chief sub-editor job on Neon, a new and funky film title. Although it was a hit with the film cognoscenti, however, after two years the closing credits were rolling for Neon and Mike joined Men's Health.

A few years at the barbells-and-boys'-toys coalface followed, after which Mike was happy to return to his first love, music, by becoming chief sub for Mojo magazine's Special Editions - monthly "one-offs" that celebrated everything from psychedelia and reggae to Bowie's 60th birthday. And that's where he was to be found before hopping on to the production editor's chair at The Word. What a long and not-so-strange trip it's been.

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