I am a journalist and communications specialist who has spent more than 20 years writing, editing and working in communications for international organizations, research centres, news outlets and cultural institutions. I translate complex ideas into straightforward, easily digestible formats.
I take contracts and one-off assignments, large or small.
I am based in Toronto and available to clients across Canada and internationally, in person in Toronto or remotely.
WHAT I DO
Stories, speaking notes, opinion pieces, annual and technical reports, press releases, newsletters and web content. Ghostwriting. Editing scientific and policy writing so general readers can understand it. Media relations, social media, communications planning and campaign communications. Writing workshops.
SELECTED WORK
A few examples from a longer list. Much of my writing is in the Environment, News and Arts story archives on this site.
At the World Bank, I handled editorial and communications work for the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR), a $345 million initiative across 27 country projects. I led production of its annual report and ghostwrote speaking notes and opinion pieces. I contributed to the #FOLURImpact campaign, which reached nearly 2 million people. For AquaInvest, I coordinated production of Harnessing the Waters, a two-volume aquaculture investment report, and helped launch it in Kampala.
At the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF, now Landscape Alliance), I edited Forests News. I started a news portal, which became Landscape News, for the newly launched Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in 2014, and I was its editor when it was relaunched in 2017 (now Think Landscape). I also led media outreach for GLF conferences. At the GLF conference at the United Nations in New York, my press release on Autumn Peltier and the Anishinabek Nation was picked up by Canadian Press, which ran a national story, and a media advisory for the GLF conference in Bonn led to BBC coverage of Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, formerly U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
At the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), I was news editor and media manager. I led a website redevelopment and helped grow its Twitter (now X) following from 9,500 to more than 17,000. My coverage and media advisories on the Fall Armyworm crisis in East Africa, at a CIMMYT conference in Nairobi, were picked up by the Financial Times, and advisories I wrote for the International Wheat Congress in Saskatoon resulted in BBC coverage for scientists.
At Reuters and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in Toronto and London, I produced and wrote web and wire copy daily on arts, climate, the environment, politics, finance and the economy. My policy interviews include Antonio Guterres, then head of the U.N. refugee agency and later Secretary-General of the United Nations; Helen Clark, then head of the U.N. Development Programme and former Prime Minister of New Zealand; and Angel Gurría, then Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.. In the arts, I interviewed Richard Monette, then artistic director of the Stratford Festival; filmmaker Atom Egoyan; and musician Patti Smith. I secured a guest blog post from Sarah Brown, the charity campaigner and wife of then UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
SUBJECTS
International development, climate change, sustainable agriculture, food systems, the environment, arts and culture, policy, health and business.
Canadian and British citizen, with long-term postings in Britain, Indonesia and Mexico, and assignments in more than 15 countries across six continents.
WHERE I’VE WORKED
World Bank, Reuters, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Global Landscapes Forum, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Landscape Alliance, Maclean’s (including the Maclean’s Guide to Universities), Canadian Business, MoneySense, Chatelaine, Edmonton Journal, the University of Toronto’s Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Art Museum at Hart House), and others.
Select stories and arts journalism have appeared in Maclean’s, National Observer, Saturday Night, Lola, Small Spiral Notebook and Storefront Paper. Work I authored and distributed through Reuters has been published by international news outlets, syndicates and digital platforms worldwide.
I also work in visual art. I built props and jewellery for theatre, with credits at the Stratford Festival and the National Ballet of Canada, and I have created installations for Nuit Blanche in Toronto.
EDUCATION
Master of Fine Arts, Creative Nonfiction
University of King’s College
Bachelor of Journalism, Newspapers (Post-Graduate)
Toronto Metropolitan University
Honours Bachelor of Arts, Cinema Studies
University of Toronto
GET IN TOUCH
Have a report that needs editing, a story or a communications plan that needs writing? Message me on LinkedIn.
I took the landscape photo above from the Cobb in Lyme Regis, England.