_{I also love taking pictures. I took some of the pictures on this website, including the one above.}

Currently

At Craig Ranch Fitness + Spa, I write content and create visuals to communicate through all B2C marketing vehicles including social media, website, online calendars, email campaigns, club signage, flyers, press releases, bulk mail, seasonal guides, and all other collateral marketing material. I contribute to every aspect of our impactful digital marketing strategy, working closely with our Digital Ad, SEO, and videography teams, as well as departmental leaders. I create weekly articles to contribute to our online magazine, and edit content written by others. I promote and coordinate events, interacting with guests, as well as taking photos and videos. I analyze the effectiveness of marketing strategies and adjust the messaging as needed to ensure success.

Education

I knew as soon as I saw the major at a marketing stand for St. Lawrence University at a college fair. I wanted to major in English and environmental studies combined.

And I did. With my combined major, I didn’t have to pick between literature and creative writing. I got to take an equal amount of classes in both.

My first English course in college was American Literature. We learned the realities of the various injustices and inequalities in the United States throughout history. We learned to become critical of everything we had ever learned before and everything we would eventually learn. We learned to be critical of our own thoughts.

Being critical and logically examining information, rather than relying on past teachings or our own mental thought processes, were core lessons that continuously reappeared in the various classes that I took in college, especially English literature, sociology, environmental, and gender studies courses.

I took a variety of creative English courses, most notably, introductory and advanced Poetry and Creative Nonfiction. These classes helped me convey my thoughts in an interesting, creative, easily comprehendible, and thoughtful style.

During my junior year, I was accepted into the International English Honor Society for having higher than a 3.6 GPA in English classes.

I graduated from St. Lawrence University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and environmental studies combined. I earned my diploma Cum laude with a 3.5/4.0 GPA.

As for environmental studies, that’s what I mainly focus on when creatively writing to submit to literary magazines.

Employment History

Although my schoolwork and classes were certainly very beneficial, I believe my working experiences developed further professional skills.

CONTENT WRITER

I worked full-time as the Content Writer at Smart Training. I really love my position. I wrote content for Smart Training’s website, training course descriptions, emails, marketing copy, social media posts, newsletters, and video scripts. I created blog posts optimizing SEO. I also reviewed the grammar used in the LMS, notifications, and any other written communication for the company.

The topics I wrote about are:

• Legal compliance for employers, especially HIPAA and OSHA compliance, but also DOT and EPA
• Employee training software: the learning management system (LMS)
• Training development and instructional design tips

I managed our blog, so I also edited, refined, and added to other employee’s blog posts.

Being a Content Writer was a dream come true. It seems like everything I was working towards paid off.

Peer communications tutor

In 2016, I applied for and was accepted to a class that prepared students to teach in the WORD Studio, St. Lawrence’s communication center. WORD is an acronym for writing, oral, research, and design.

In this tutoring course, we learned non-directive tutoring. This means the tutor asks the students leading questions in order to help them find the right answer on their own, rather than just telling them the answers.

As tutors at the WORD Studio, we mainly focused on higher-order concerns, including organization, argumentation, meeting the expectations of the professor’s assignment, and use and citation of scholarly sources. After higher-order concerns were taken care of, we handled the lower-order concerns, including grammar, visual components, and public speaking skills.

creative Tanner fellowship

My junior year, my English professor recommended I apply for the Tanner Fellow Award. I am so glad he did, because I earned the award and was given a stipend to pursue a creative fellowship in the summer of 2018. My project involved working at in St. Lawrence’s Owen D. Young Library Special Collections with Paul Doty creating a descriptive bibliography of books about canoes in the North Country.

This project introduced me to the world of descriptive bibliographic writing, increasing my attention to detail and my ability to write within specific guidelines. It also increased my knowledge in both my majors: English and environmental studies. Finally, it helped me learn more about the Adirondack Park; the mountains are not too far from St. Lawrence’s campus.

I presented on my fellowship at St. Lawrence University’s Scholarship of Science, Scholarship, and Creativity in 2019.

Communications internship

I also completed a written internship in 2018 with Deborah Dudley at the Office of University Communications at St. Lawrence. In order to be selected as an intern, applicants had to submit a record of the English classes we took as well as the grades we earned, as well as two writing samples.

Luckily, I was accepted, and along with 4 other students, we were able to create an amazing classroom atmosphere. Our class focused on workshops for us to provide and receive constructive criticism to continue making our articles better. I wrote blog articles, press releases, and journalistic articles; my pieces were published in University News and St. Lawrence University Magazine. 

Publications

Besides the communications roles I held, I was very active in writing for journals and magazines at St. Lawrence.

My first publication was in 2017. After I wrote a paper analyzing gender and race in Thoreau’s abolitionist essays for a my English Research Methods class, my professor suggested I submit it to the St. Lawrence Review. It was accepted, and my dream of seeing my name in a book finally came true.

In 2019, I was again published in St. Lawrence Review with an essay analyzing Margaret Atwood’s portrayal of environmentalism in her novel, Oryx and Crake. Another critical essay I wrote examining the show Black Mirror and its portrayal of posthumanism was published as the leading essay in Underground Journal in 2019. That same year, a creative poem of mine was published in Laurentian Magazine.

Upon graduating, my love for writing has not died. It never will. I was recently published in Honey & Lime Literary Magazine with a creative nonfiction piece about climate change.

I still write and submit to literary magazines and journals, hoping to grow my portfolio of previous publications. I’m so excited to share my most recent publication, “Bare Necessities” in Tiny Spoon‘s Issue about ecology.

So follow along with me on my journey.

I always want to expand. Grow. Learn more. Become a better writer.