Growing up with stories

I spent my first interviews under kitchen tables in rural Newfoundland, listening to folktales of fairies and witches mix with the swell of the ocean. When I was five I never figured I’d grow up to be the one switching on a recorder and asking questions. But here I am.

Actually, here is a long way from those days. I’m 23 now, I’ve grown way too tall to fit under tables, and I’ve moved off the island to study journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. My goal as a journalist is simple:

Tell stories, the best way they can be told.

It’s an ideal I’m working toward and the reason I’m studying television and online journalism this semester. Some stories are best in writing, spelled out and committed to paper. Some sounds and voices are so rich they’re just meant for radio, to be listened to with eyes closed. And some stories you just have to see.

To date I’ve worked as a writer, editor and sometimes photographer at The Muse, the student newspaper at Memorial University where I majored in English. I then spent a year as a reporter and columnist with The Independent, a weekly provincial paper that has since closed, sadly. Last summer I was awarded a Peter Gzowski Internship at CBC Radio, where I produced pieces for current affairs shows and spent a month reporting daily news.

It’s not about the work, though. It’s about the stories and the people who tell you them. Whether they’re in a tiny fishing community in Newfoundland, or gigantic Toronto, everyone’s got a story to tell. I want to hear it.

Icebergs in Tickle Cove, Newfoundland.