Week 27: Mick

Twitcher, Leeds United fan and occassional blogger. Based in Armley, Mick's written three books including Nailed - Digital Stalking. He has three sons and the proudest moment of his life was when Mike Garson contacted him to say how much he'd enjoyed reading Coming Out.

Week 26: Gary the Gopher

Hi I'm Gary the Gopher of GopherDeals.co.uk. I was born (well more like created) on Valentines Day 2008 in Leeds to help local businesses promote themselves.

I've lived in Leeds all my life, based at Queen Square LS2, and think I could well be the country's first and one and only Gopher entrepreneur.

I love the people and the businesses of Leeds and I am big a fan of helping the city to thrive.
I'd describe myself as furry, cuddly and a lot of fun.

With my week on People of Leeds I hope to provide a unique insight into the city from my point of view as well as the others I meet along the way.

If you spot me come say hi - I will give a you a free cuddle and may even post your picture on the Twitter account!

Have a nice day now!
Gary the Gopher
xx

Week 25: Phil

Originally from the Midlands, I've lived up in Leeds since my teens
and never quite escaped - despite some honourable attempts - and moved
into the city centre (the uncool end, but it still counts!) about
three years ago. Like many people here, I work for a digital marketing
agency where I do front-end web development (the stuff that goes on in
the browser) and am rather excitable about the awesome communities
that we're creating.

This year sees a bit of a shift to being more sociable and I can often
be found at book clubs and other varied events that go on in the city.
I'm also a big motor sport fan and a collector of t-shirts, most of
which I don't even wear. My second favourite kind of mushroom is the
straw mushroom.

Week 24: Leanne

I’m Leanne, a child of the neighbouring Metropolis of Barnsley, I commute into Leeds ever day to work for Leeds City Council in the marketing team. My day job sees me running around the city working on projects like the beautiful Victorian Leeds Kirkgate Market and the many Farmer’s Markets in the city; the bi-annual Leeds Architecture Awards celebrating excellence in urban design; the annual Leeds Digital Festival bringing together all aspects of digital from games development and web design to film, photography and art. It busy but fun and most of my meetings are held in bars, cafes and pubs so expect an insight into the best places to meet up.

After hours I am the guardian of a small travelling #LegoTourist taking bookings for adventures across the world. I’m also on a mission to complete #30things of randomness to celebrate growing old gracelessly. The challenges include everything from dance and language classes to milking cows and the odd spot of street art. I’m also the Digital & Design Editor for the @CultureVultures blog seeking out interesting snippets of news, events and creative characters across the north.

Week 23: Catherine

My name is Catherine, I was born in Leeds and currently live in Headingley and I work at Leeds Met University.  I hope to share some of my passion for my home city as I experience some of what the City has to offer with and without my 16 month son.

Week 22: Elly

Apologies for the delay in Elly's details - she was a last minute stand in for another curator, and so didn't get any time to prepare!

I am a full time writer and content creator at a digital marketing agency in Leeds, as well as a freelance writer, fashion/culture blogger, and general nosy parker. I like getting involved with everything and anything in Leeds, including events, pubs, talks, workshops, debates and anything I can get my hands on. I've written for Culture Vulture, Leeds Guide and Guardian Leeds, as well as being a regular contributor to Beyond Guardian Leeds. I graduated from my MA in History of Art last year, where my dissertation was on fashion blogging as a form of contemporary labour. Yeh, so like, brains and that.

I'm looking forward to being a Person of Leeds for a week to show the rest of Twitter my version of Leeds - the people, places, style and substance that make it great and has kept me here since 2009. Oh, and I am consistently and almost-fashionably late for everything.

Week Twenty-One: Matthew

I'm a writer and storyteller, based in Moortown in North Leeds. I work all over the city, with all sorts of different people. A lot of the work I do is in local schools, but I also perform in libraries, theatres, museums, tents - pretty much anywhere that'll have me really

I tell all sorts of different stories from traditional myths and folktales to interpretations of well-known literary classics. I also perform my own material – mainly stories about my life growing-up in Leeds. There's some more stuff about me online at: http://www.somestories.co.uk

I'm also in the middle of an ongoing twitter project myself - @365LeedsStories. I'm basically trying to tweet a tiny story about the city of Leeds for every day of the year. Some of the stories are factual, some are funny (well I think so anyway) and some are sad. The only rule for their inclusion in the project is that they must in some way be connected to the urban utopia that is Leeds. That's been going on since April 2011 and I'm planning to run it for another year at least.

I also tweet as myself @PostboxJohn