Anna Leach has always wanted to be a journalist since watching Press Gang as an impressionable child, but it took her until 2009 to fully commit with an MA in magazine journalism at the prestigious City University in London.

Before that she’d dabbled in student journalism in Manchester and during a term abroad in California. She was editor at Local Secrets, a what's on website for Cambridge, writing arts reviews and interviews and producing a published restaurant guide for the city for 2007-08.

When she finished her masters in June 2010 it became clear that she’d have to find a job in journalism, in a recession, in London, so she decided it would be much easier to move half-way round the world to China.

She got a job as staff writer for Time Out Shanghai. After a year of the highs and lows of exploring a foreign city with a thickly impenetrable language barrier editing the the Mind & Body, Property and Kids sections, she was promoted to senior writer and began to edit the LGBT section reporting on the opening up of gay life in China.

In December 2011 she was approached by Tris Reid-Smith to be Asia and Australia correspondent for Gay Star News. Since starting the job she has relished the opportunity  to report on developments at a critical time for gay rights in Asia and Australia. She thinks it’s the best job in the world, and doesn’t even miss the free massages.

You can email Anna or find contact details for the whole GSN team here.