The Tees Online is fortunate to have a host of talented, highly experienced writers and contributors who are passionate about our area. If you’d like to volunteer to join the team, please email us here. We’d love to hear from you!

Anthony Vickers
Anthony Vickers (@untypicalboro) spent 30 years covering Middlesbrough FC For the Gazette. The award-winning writer covered Boro news, opinion, colour, politics, culture and history during a golden age for the club and led a drive to get fans' opinions into print. He also launched the successful and influential Untypical Boro blog which was an agenda shaping forum with a lively comments section.
28 Posts
Christina Marshall
Christina is the new Venue Manager for North Shire, a magical wedding and self catering holiday venue in Saltburn by the Sea, having worked for Stockton Council Events Team for four years previously.
2 Posts
Colin Conroy
Colin Conroy, is a birdwatcher, botanist and general ecologist, originally from Liverpool, who has worked in Lebanon, Canada and India but now lives in Middlesbrough. Colin spends a lot of his spare time on his favourite local 'patch', Middle Marsh, in North Ormesby, which, thanks largely to his efforts over the past five years has just been saved from destruction and declared as a nature reserve by Middlesbrough Council. As well as writing for The Tees he has a blog - Colin's Ramblings - which is currently focused mostly on his efforts to see as many species of birds in a year as he can using only his bike and his feet in the process. For more of Colin’s Ramblings, visit northormesbynaturalist.blogspot.com
13 PostsGillie Hatton
Gillie is the website Editor at The Tees Online, and as well as being a partner at Sixth Element Publishing, she is the author of the Thieves' Guild series of scifi thriller books (as CG Hatton), and is the editor of the Harvey Duckman Presents series of scifi anthologies...
4 Posts
Jenna Warren
Jenna Warren runs Book Corner, an independent bookshop in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, which she established in 2014. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Teesside University, and has had short stories published by Writers Online and English Heritage. She loves writing about music and the theatre, and she hasrecently completed her first novel.'
2 Posts
Jessie Joe Jacobs
Jessie Joe Jacobs is one of the co-founders of The Tees Online. She was the Labour Party candidate for Metro Mayor of the Tees Valley in 2021, is the former Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of A Way Out charity, and is a Sunday Times social entrepreneur of the year. She is a co-founder of The Eclipse and I Love Stockton Me, and director for Food and Drink North East.
14 Posts
Matthew Williams
Matthew Williams is a middle-aged single dad of two from Middlesbrough who is grimly hanging onto his hair – which remains its original colour – and teeth. He started writing in 2015 following divorce and the strange, alternative reality of online dating. Matthew published his first book in December 2017 and never looked back. He’s a passionate advocate for mental health and has developed a unique new personal development course, ‘Change’, based around storytelling principles and designed to help people to make positive changes in their lives. Find out more about Matthew’s work at www.changeyourstory.org.uk
3 Posts
Max Wrigley
Max Wrigley was born and grew up in Teesside. He found a love for writing aged 19 and is currently at the University of East Anglia studying for a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing and English Literature. His ambition is to publish books which have underlying meanings connected to ongoing issues that people experience.
10 Posts
Michael Johnson
Born and bred in Stockton on Tees and with York the furthest afield I have lived, I am currently embracing the journey of finding my voice as a writer, on a post-pandemic adventure. I am passionate about culture, especially cinema and above all else music, as well as sports, particularly football and American Football. My writing reflects these topics. You can also find my musings on local cultural matters at NE Volume and on a variety of topics at my blog, Roads To The North.
2 Posts
Molly Catterall
I am a freelance writer passionate about people, women and the environment. With a degree in journalism and Masters in media production, I love exploring people and their stories. Born in Middlesbrough am proud of being from the North and love to celebrate Teesside.
4 Posts
Paula McMahon
Paula McMahon works for Sir Robert McAlpine as a key worker on the A19 DBFO Project which maintains part of the strategic road network. Paula also undertakes a wider role in SRM mentoring and coaching candidates who are working towards professional qualifications. Paula has for many years volunteered with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and is currently the Teesside Branch Chair and North East Vice Chair. Paula also undertakes national roles by sitting on the Editorial Panel of the ICE Proceedings: Civil Engineering and is an ICE Reviewer. Paula also has other voluntary roles helping encourage a workforce and workplace for the future. This includes being a STEM and Apprentice Ambassador, an active member of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Tyne and Tees Cluster, attending as a guest lecturer at Teesside University and sitting on the North East Chamber of Commerce Transport Forum. Paula truly believes that collaboration and working together are key to success. As such she brought together and is the founding chair of Engineering Together (www.engineeringtogether.com).
15 Posts
Simon Shaw
Live music promoter for over 10 years, I believe in community at a very fundamental level of just being nice to each other in and around the areas we live. I play live music with projects Travis Shaw, Church Honey, Cape Cub & Our Glass. I also trail run up on the moors because it's bloody lovely up there all weathers. Profile pic by Daniel Stark.
9 Posts
Sophia Gowland
Sophia Gowland is the owner of the Digital Marketing Agency - The Petite Agency. She has a passion for content creation and enjoys speaking to the other business owners of Teesside and sharing their stories on The Tees platform.
24 Posts
Sunita Ghosh Dastidar
Sunita's love of people and their stories led her to studying radio as part of her MSc, securing a placement with the BBC Digital Planet Team. Now working for The Tees Online, Sunita is focused on furthering local voices and those less often heard, by harnessing online media forms such as podcasts and radio.
9 Posts
Will Nett
Will Nett is 'about 40' and from Middlesbrough, right up the top of England. His global appeal and general popularity have seen his writing career straddle two Millennia. He is an incurable backpacker, occasional banjo picker and habitual note-maker/taker, most of which have found their way into his Gonzo-steeped books, My Only Boro: A Walk Through Red & White, and his riotous travelogue, Billy No Maps: Teessider On Tour. He has been a Sudoku salesman, snooker table repair man, model, cinema usher and unprofessional gambler. His latest book, The Golfer's Lament: How I Reached For The Pars...And Missed, was submitted for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award 2020.
2 Posts