I’ve always loved reading, writing, editing and designing. As a child, I used to rewrite stories from the newspaper, clip the accompanying photos and paste them all artfully into scrapbooks. Lots of scrapbooks.

What happens to a kid creating personal newsmagazines in her basement? She turns into a teenager who goes looking to “help out” at her local weekly paper. Fortunately, they humoured me. Of course, they were desperate — the weekend reporter was sick. So, they sent me to write a story one weekend, which turned into many stories over several weekends. The editor liked my work so much, he hired me to work part-time. I’ve never looked back.

I went on to work for a range of newspapers, including the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and the Times Colonist. I’ve worked as a news reporter, feature writer, story editor, page designer and associate city editor.

In 2010, I took a break from newspaper work to study web design because it combined my passions for writing, editing and design.

Now I combine my experience, skills and interests into creating compelling content as a freelance writer, editor and web designer.