Pasties & cream is a blog written by Ismay Atkins, a freelance writer and editor based in Penzance, west Cornwall.

ismay atkins writer editor cornwallBefore going freelance, I was a staff editor at Time Out in London, where I wrote and edited extensively for the Time Out Group, on the City Guides, the London Guides, the London listings magazine and online publications.

I now write and edit on a freelance basis for a number of publications about travel, culture and food, including the Independent on Saturday & Sunday, The Guardian, food magazine (South-West), Cornwall Today, Dorling Kindersley, I-escape, 10best.com, Rough Guide, Mr & Mrs Smith, Conde Nast Traveller, Time Out London magazine and other travel guides. I am the Cornwall author of the Time Out Devon & Cornwall Guide, first published in 2010 and updated in 2012.

time out devon & cornwall guide ismay atkins

Biog in brief

Five years as an editor for Time Out Guides took me to the highest building in the world in Shanghai, desert kasbahs in Morocco, impeccably designed hotel suites in Stockholm and all manner of less glamorous flophouses in between.

Then in 2006 – in a moment of calculated carpe diem – I left my flukey flat overlooking the Thames for the shores of the River Plate in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Two carefree years of perma-blue skies, butter-soft steaks and free-flowing Malbec ensued.

I returned to reality with a bump in 2008. Fortunately, reality for me now is a house a few paces from the sea in Penzance, Cornwall – so in the end, the bump wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was really rather good.

chapel porth cornwall

chapel porth

newlyn cornwall

winter’s day in newlyn