Resume

I am a copy editor, page designer, digital editor/producer and content (emphasis on the first syllable of "content") marketer from Memphis, Tennessee, where I was a committer of journalism since the tenth month of the first decade of the second millennium and became a practitioner of contenting when Ben said he'd pay me some dollars to do it.

After almost 17 years with the area's biggest daily newspaper, the corporate beast that rhymes with Schmannett gobbled up 495 Union Avenue and in short order eliminated the copy and design desks, created a digital desk and in less than a year washed its tiny demon hands of that digital desk. Fine! No biggie! I hate your face! (jk lol eyeroll) Anyway, I soon found employment as Production Designer (that’s what they called it; I designed their daily and weekly print product and put stuff on the website) at The Daily News/The Memphis News where I got a monitor the size of a shipping container, a chair allowance and lottery VIP parking. I considered myself truly and sarcastically #blessed AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:

I was swept along into Memphis’ newest source of local journalism, becoming a legacy member of The Daily Memphian staff as it took form under the leadership of The Daily News’ publisher, who brought together veteran local journalists to create a not-for-profit online news source to serve the city. Long story short, two months after leaving The CA I was working for a smaller but thriving publication. Two years later, I was working as the Digital Editor at a start-up, still committing journalism. Again, I considered myself truly and sarcastically #blessed AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:

In an unhappy turn of events, in May of COVID-19, 2020, as a result of a newsroom reorganization, The Daily Memphian eliminated my position. Bummer, what with there being a pandemic and record unemployment and whatnot. I am no longer a Memphian, either, having relocated from sweaty-hot Tennessee to melty-hot Texas. Please, Mighty Editor in the Sky, make the Texas part short. No offense, Texans, but driving in your state will be the thing that breaks me. Not unemployment. Not a pandemic. Houston traffic will be the thing that breaks me. But I digress. Simply put, I need a job.

UPDATE: The Mighty Editor in the Sky strung me along for almost a year, allowing a few nibbles here and there, a couple of offers that left me crying on the floor of a closet for several hours because HOW CAN YOU OFFER, WITH A STRAIGHT FACE, THAT KIND OF SALARY TO SOMEONE WITH MY LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE OR TO ANY GROWN UP WITH A DEGREE, EXPERIENCE AND DESIRE TO OWN A HOME AND EAT AND GO TO THE DOCTOR AND HAVE ANY FUN IN LIFE EVER WTactualF, MAN … anyway, in April 2021, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, took a leap of faith and hired me as full-time fully-remote copy editor and designer, allowing me to start earning while my photojournalist husband was still job hunting, because he has to, like, actually be in a place to take a photo. I am grateful to the C.R. folks and am lucky to be doing what I know how to do with a team of passionate and experienced journalists who had to let a Memphian in Texas join their team. BUT THEN THIS HAPPENED:

About a week after I was offered the C.R. job, my husband landed a job shooting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So within a week we moved about 1/5 of our stuff to The City Different and hit the ground running. If not for the remote job, we’d likely be pretty screwed. In order to continue committing journalism, to keep doing what we have done our entire lives, we settled for a pretty significant pay cut, putting us where we were 21 years ago salary-wise. We are in an apartment half the size of our beloved Memphis bungalow, our belongings strewn across several states, accepting the reality that buying a home any time soon in the worst possible housing market in a city that is already known for high cost of living in a poor state … well, it’s been something of an adjustment, to say the least.

PLOT TWIST! After four months in Santa Fe, a position opened up with Pasatiempo, the arts, culture and entertainment magazine published weekly by The Santa Fe New Mexican. The chance to do what I do in the city in which I now live was incredibly attractive, not to mention the fact I was becoming an apartment crone who hissed at actual people because I rarely ventured out … anyway, I managed to pull myself together enough to get the job. I guess we live here now!

Anyhoo, there’s all that. I'd like to say I’m not looking, but I have learned a lot of hard lessons these last couple years, with probably the biggest takeaway being to not get too comfortable in a job and to always be open to new opportunities. So here’s the Obligatory Pitch:

I'm a content integrity specialist — a career journalist, a word nerd and curator of content. Working on strict deadlines over the years has shaped me into an organized, flexible and collaborative visual storyteller with the versatility to marry words and images.

I have evolved with the business of journalism and grown my skill set as the product shifted from print to digital. Yeah, I know SEO and how to please the Google gods.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

I have worked as a freelancer with an ADDY Award-winning marketing firm in Memphis as a copywriter, creating content for web sites and managing social media platforms for multiple and varied clients on a daily basis. My ability to capture a client's voice also has provided opportunities as a ghostwriter for their blogs.

Creating and editing compelling content, whether journalism or marketing, is only a sliver of what I bring to the table. Maturity, experience, solidity, loyalty - these are qualities that employers may not ask for in a job description, but we all know are invaluable and I've got them in spades.

Lagniappe: An article I wrote making the case for hiring serial journalists
looking for something new.