I’ve been hooked on words since Grade 4. I made a poster for our local fall fair, and the tagline I wrote made my dad laugh. My words did that.

I was hooked.

That spark eventually turned into a freelance gig with my local newspaper when the editor hired me off the strength of my short story samples.

My first assignment was a weekend-long homecoming celebration: the BBQ, the parade, the book fair, all of it. There was only one problem: I had no idea how to write for a newspaper. So I analyzed a few articles, figured out how they worked, and wrote my submission. It ran with only minor edits. Yay, me!

Those newspaper clippings got me my first full-time job, running communications for an industry association. From there, I moved into the tech sector doing PR and marketing at a laser technology company. Then I spent several years in financial services, where I learned to take dense, compliance-heavy material and make it clear and interesting for regular people. And I wrote speeches and presentations for the CEO and COO at a telecom. That was my first real taste of writing in someone else’s voice.

Most recently, I was the first content writer at a payments intelligence company. I built the content engine from scratch, ghostwrote LinkedIn for the CEO, and turned webinars into weeks of content. That helped drive a 48% jump in organic traffic and a 500% increase in booked meetings.

Whew! That’s a lot. But even after all these years, I still love writing and getting people interested, seeing what lands, and then making it better.