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UK-based freelance features writer and journalist. 

With support from the Journalism Diversity Fund, I have recently completed my NCTJ in Multimedia Journalism.

I have words in Dazed, The Times, The Londoners, Europinion, The Boar, and on my Substack, Opalesce.

At the Financial Times, I supported the Untold and Tech Tonic podcasts.

Commission me: katebevanjourno@gmail.com

Featured articles

Dazed •

Art is getting challenging again

The creative process behind Rosalía’s fourth studio album LUX was Sisyphean. If retreating into isolation in Los Angeles for the best part of three years and writing (and rewriting) lyrics in 13 different languages doesn’t sound like impossibly hard work, then I don’t know what does. No stranger to Herculean efforts, though, Rosalía persevered; LUX has seen the light of day, complete with features from Björk and the London Symphony Orchestra. However, the true challenge – the real metaphorical b...
South East Londoner •

Rosalía live in London: Spanish star creates musical masterpiece | South East Londoner

I once gave two hiking nuns directions to the Santa Maria de Montserrat abbey via the summit of Sant Jeroni, a mountain outside of Barcelona. It is the closest I have been to heaven; there is power in a good deed. The second closest was at the O2 Arena on Wednesday. In the beginning, there was darkness – and Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Angel’ playing over the sound system. I am sitting higher than any mortal should be. The orchestra march like ants to their seats, forming a crucifix in the middle of the are...
South West Londoner •

Record abortions tied to contraception barriers and cost pressures

Abortions in England and Wales have reached their highest level on record, with experts pointing to widespread misinformation, worsening access to contraception, and the cost-of-living crisis as key factors behind the rise.


There were almost 278,000 abortions in 2023, according to the latest data from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).


This is up 11% from the previous year, 50% in the last ten years, and – since the Abortion Act made terminating a pregnancy legal in 1967 – ma...
South West Londoner •

A very modern Marilyn: The National Portrait Gallery celebrates 100 years of Hollywood’s golden girl  | South West Londoner

In still image alone, there is very little – other than peroxide – that separates Norma Jeane from Marilyn Monroe. At 14, with ringlet curls and red lipstick, Jeane grins film-star like into the lens of an automatic photobooth; at 36, with her hands clasped and hair ruffled, Monroe blows a girlish kiss at the camera for the last time. From girl to star, and ultimately, icon, she – Norma Jeane, Marilyn Monroe – pulled off one of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary feats of self-invention....
South West Londoner •

London house prices fall for ninth month in a row, new data reveals | South West Londoner

Property prices in London have slumped for the ninth month in a row according to new data from the Office for National Statistics. 


House prices have underperformed across the capital, falling by 2.1% annually, with central London and the inner boroughs particularly affected. 


Westminster saw prices fall by nearly 20% to an average property valuation of £815,000. 


Tower Hamlets saw the second biggest drop at 12.6%, followed by Kensington and Chelsea, where house prices fell to £1,273,00...
Europinion •

Rutte Is Too Calm Before The Storm

Churchill may or may not have said – it’s an aphorism with cloudy provenance – that “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte may or may not believe it. After all, as American threats to obtain Greenland, a member of NATO via the Danish commonwealth, grow increasingly bellicose, the “Trump-whisperer” is all but silent. Adopting a ‘nothing to see here’ attitude with almost monkish flair, Rutte tol...
North West Londoner •

Campaign group demands criminal investigation into felling of ‘healthy’ ancient oak tree in Enfield   | North West Londoner

A community campaign group has called for a criminal investigation into the felling of an ancient oak tree in Enfield, after a new report by the Forestry Commission found the tree was alive and healthy. 


The Guardians of Whitewebbs claim the investigation’s findings suggest the felling was criminal damage. 


The 500-year-old tree, which is believed to have been standing at the time of the gunpowder plot, showed no signs of major disease when it was cut down beside a Toby Carvery restaurant...
Europinion •

I Was A Juror. Lammy’s Proposals Are Misguided.

Never has time felt more like a construct than in the jurors waiting room at Wolverhampton Crown Court – once inside, you’d be hard pushed to guess the decade let alone how long you’d be kept waiting. There are three clocks dotted along the pale blue walls and no television; the Wi-Fi works (just about). Fifties-style dinner ladies are arbitrarily summoned by a bell to dish out fish fingers, chips, and beans whilst queues spring up at the vending machines for hot drinks that poorly resemble latt...

London's hi-fi listening bars

Careful research ought to be undertaken before you embark upon a listening bar crawl in London. How well do you know your friends? How well do your friends know you? How well do you even know yourself?
 See, some places are meditative. Sitting in between a bespoke sound system, martini in hand, whilst esoteric jazz washes over you like a sound bath is one kind of evening. It’s the relaxing, mind-expanding kind, that isn’t really for talking. Others are restaurants with record...
The Boar •

'Your dad works for my dad': testimonies from working-class students at Warwick.

Dreams manifest themselves simultaneously as the spyglass, map, and compass for the achievement of a future goal. Such is the strength of dreams that we are transformed into avid chasers, marching purposefully along the intangible trail we spied ahead of us. One particular trail sees thousands of young people descend upon university campuses every autumn.

Not only an enclave of academic rigour, but also the setting of a steep cultural exchange; university is sold to prospective students as a ut
Europinion •

No Artificial Ingredients - The Creative Industries Will Need To Strike A Balance With Al. What Might That Look Like?

Very rarely do last-minute plans disappoint in the MCI (mischief-chaos-intrigue) department; it is why I’d advise you never to turn them down. So, when I found myself invited, just a few weeks ago, to a last-minute dinner at Akub, a splendid Palestinian restaurant nestled in between London’s Kensington and Notting Hill, I knew that I simply had to go.
Europinion •

Starmer Has Finally Found A Story

Keir Starmer has always reminded me of one of those schoolteachers – the perfectly decent, dithering kind whom good kids pity, and bad kids prey on. The kind that starts the term brimming with do-gooder ideas only to have abandoned them before Week One is out, by which time the kids, launching questions and rogue glue sticks their way, have reinstated the law of the jungle. Maybe it was just my school…Except if the first 14 months of his premiership are anything to go by, then this image is no r...
Opalesce •

New York Fashion Week Is Unsure Of Itself

Home to the very first Fashion Week, then Press Week, in 1943, New York makes a natural fashion capital. A city of superlatives, creatives flock to New York on account of it being the biggest and the boldest and the richest and the grittiest city that never ever sleeps, where rats and fashion inspiration run riot in equal measures. Many a legacy brand is housed here - think Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein. Many a supermodel, too. Oh, and Carrie Bradshaw (I mean the city was the fifth character). But, for a city with such spirit, such style, we find ourselves in a rather strange predicament; New York Fashion Week is unsure of itself. Not dead, as the cries go, but unsure.
The Boar •

‘We probably don’t see Warwick campus as a culture, but it is’: Warwick Clothes Circuit on What’s Warwick Wearing

Armed with a smartphone, tiny mic, and a keen eye for second-hand style, the exec of Warwick Clothes Circuit have taken on the guise of the modern-day hunter: the street-interviewer.
Inspired by the YouTuber, Not So Blonde, and her series What Are People Wearing in Paris?, Haneefah, Circuit’s Head of Social Media, saw an opportunity to showcase Warwick’s own sharp and sustainable dressers. 
“You really get a taste for somewhere, a destination, and a lot of inspiration and vulnerable bits of huma...
The Boar •

Trump and Harris' economic showdown

In the patchwork blanket of our lives, choices are the thread. From the seemingly inconsequential – ‘What do I wear today?’ – to the very consequential – ‘Who do I vote for?’ – each choice, and the subsequent decision we make, patches together the trajectory of our lives. And right now, the American people are hurtling towards a crucial fork in the road: on Tuesday 5 November, they will head to the polls to vote in this year’s presidential election.
For some, the choice is clear. Most of those i...
The Boar •

The Music That Made Me: Red Hot Chili Peppers

To start, I want you to know where I am. I am sitting, currently alone, at a beach in Barcelona. It is 20 degrees Celsius – Winter apparently – the sun is beating down on me, my freckles flourishing, and the sound of the waves is lulling me into a sun-drunk haze. A year abroad was a good idea.

Now, I need you to know that I am not really here. Under the sultry sun, the temptation to sink into the realm of possibility is too rich – my dreams are never stronger than in the daytime, and right now,
The Boar •

Nirvana's seminal album, In Utero, turns 30: a retrospective

Adverbially, to be in utero is to be in a woman’s uterus. Adjectivally, it means happening before birth. This perhaps leaves In Utero, the raw and seminal third, and final studio album from Nirvana suspended in limbo. Far from the protective space between woman and baby, or rather band and album, In Utero has sold over 15 million copies worldwide since its release in 1993, leaving it vulnerable to the critique of the certified, and the less-than-certified, critics. Adverbially, then, it fails. A
The Boar •

In conversation with Alien Chicks: 'We want to bring energy, fun, and also the best quality of music we can'

Starting out as a band in the music industry is not a particularly alien feat. Daunting yes, but uncommon? Certainly not. Like stargazing on a cloudless night, if you keep looking, new bands seem to be appearing everywhere. But to really be impressed by a singular star in such an overcrowded night sky, there must be something particularly vibrant about it. It must either shoot across the sky at staggering speed or dazzle you with some natural brilliance. The same is true of bands starting out –