Nickolas Woods, BA (Hons), DPSI, MCIL

CURRICULUM VITAE

PERSONAL DETAILS

NAME: Nickolas Woods

DATE OF BIRTH: 11/12/70; age: 39

EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE

FREELANCE: Since September 2003 I have been a freelance journalist, contributing feature articles and news story ideas for the UK’s national and regional press - most notably The Sunday Telegraph, The Times Higher Education Supplement, The Journal in Newcastle and the Leicester Mercury. Since September 2004, when I relocated to Berlin, Germany, I have also written articles for Expactica (www.expatica.com), covering issues of interest to English-speaking expats in Germany, including how to become a freelancer, the cheapest and best way to learn German, gay sports opportunities and the gay Turkish scene. I have also written for Exberliner, a monthly lifestyle magazine for English speakers in Berlin. Articles have included reports on French and Argentinean Berlin, fashion and alternative therapy in the city, a Bollywood in Berlin special and a jobs / survival guide for Anglophones who are struggling to make ends meet. I have also written about the Argentinean property market for Homes Overseas Magazine and a feature on second-hand fashion in Berlin for the Easyjet magazine. I write the gay chapter for the Time Out Berlin city guide (2006, 2008) and I have written a gay and lesbian Berlin article for the ABTA magazine. I wrote a short-form of the Time Out Berlin guide (2007) focusing on new developments in terms of entertainment in the city and I am about to start on the latest version of it. Since September 2008 I have also been a theatre and dance critic and columnist for the Paris-based website www.paris-update.com.

NEWSPAPERS: From January 2000-August 2003, I was political correspondent for The Journal, Newcastle, covering local, regional, national and European issues, working from Newcastle and Westminster. Key issues included the EU’s response to North-East unemployment, regeneration and regional devolution. In this role, I covered numerous political visits including from the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown. I also covered press conferences, union and party political conferences and general and local elections. 
In addition to politics, I was also the paper’s dance critic and I also wrote theatre, restaurant and holiday reviews as well as lifestyle features, mainly covering health, fitness and male grooming. For two years before joining The Journal, I was a general news reporter for the Leicester Mercury, England’s fifth largest regional daily, specialising in local government. Earlier newspaper experience included work placements with the (Bournemouth) Evening Echo, Wharfedale Newspapers in Yorkshire (Bradford and District Newspapers) and The Stage entertainment industry weekly in London.

MAGAZINES: Before working for newspapers I reported for a range of travel industry and consumer titles for international timeshare exchange giant RCI Europe and edited the company’s staff magazine called Exchanges and distributed to workers across Europe and Israel and India. I have written features for The Big Issue magazine and The Punter, an entertainment guide distributed in the South of England. At Manchester University I wrote articles for student newspaper The Mancunion and earlier edited Bournemouth School magazine The Crusader.

DESIGN: In addition to writing, I am also trained and work as an on-screen copy-editor using Quark Xpress or InDesign / InCopy. Most recently I have been working on brochures and magazines for Berlin-based corporate publisher Kircher Burkhardt, which has contracts with companies including Robert Bosch and Deutsche Bahn.

AUTHORSHIPS: I have contributed ideas and texts (source stories and poems as well as exercises) for secondary school books in the Camden Town and Portobello Road series by Diesterweg, one of the largest schoolbook publishers in Germany.

LANGUAGE WORK EXPERIENCE

January 2005 – now: Freelance translator / proofreader. German, French and Spanish into English, also English into French. My specialist fields are general newspaper articles, marketing/advertising, travel and tourism, politics at all levels, the public sector, the environment and the arts, in particular theatre and dance.

Freelance interpreter: French to English and vice versa, and German to English. I am a holder of the Diploma in Public Service Interpreting from the Chartered Institute of Linguists. My specialist fields are local government, government, and politics, although I have also taken several market research and industry projects.

September 2004-June 2005 and September 2005-June 2006: English language teacher in Berlin, Germany, organised through the British Council.

July 2004-September 2004: public service interpreter/translator (French into English and vice versa) for Leicester City Council, UK.

July 2004: TEFL to Spanish secondary school pupils in Leicester, organised through Ardmore Language Schools, UK.

July 1994-July 95: passenger handling agent for Air France at Heathrow Airport. During this time I also worked as a marketing assistant for language recruitment consultancy Bilinguagroup in Mayfair, London.

July-September 1993: night porter at Le Chalet Du Mont d'Arbois, Megève, France.

PROFESSIONAL AND LANGUAGE TRAINING/ GENERAL EDUCATION

October 2005-January 2006, conference interpreting course (German into English and vice versa) at the Tempelhof-Schöneberg Volkshochschule in Berlin.

Humboldt University Sprachenzentrum, Berlin, 2004-06, German language courses to Oberstufe level. Also a course in grammar for translators/interpreters.

October 2003 - June 2004. Diploma in Public Service Interpreting, De Montfort University, Leicester, with Spanish and German classes and refresher French

Goethe Institut, Berlin, September 2003, intensive language course

October 2003: Intensive 80-hour TEFL course by private provider i-to-i.

November 1999: I completed the National Council for the Training of Journalists National Certificate of Education.

Brockington College, Leicester, UK, Sept 1998 to June 1999, Spanish GSCE, A*

July 1997: sub-editing course at PMA editorial training school, London

April-July 1995: 13-week postgraduate diploma in periodical journalism at the London College of Printing

Manchester University, UK, 1991 to 1994: History/French BA (Hons), 2:2

Bournemouth School, UK, 1982 to 1989: 10 O’Levels and three A’Levels

MEMBERSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL BODIES

Member of the Institute of Linguists, London

Member of the National Union of Journalists

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS

Exclusive of the Year (Highly Commended), 2001 North-East Press Awards

LANGUAGES

Native English, fluent French, advanced German, intermediate Spanish

OFFICE/EDITORIAL SKILLS

Shorthand/touch typing, Microsoft Word, Quark Xpress, InCopy, Excel, Powerpoint

INTERESTS

Politics, travel, languages, the written and spoken word, oriental dance, ballet, Ashtanga yoga and improvisation in written, verbal and physical expression.