Meet Alyssa, Our Newest Employee!
Posted November 19, 2019
My grandma said that when I was a baby, she would read to me, but play a simultaneous game where she would turn the book upside down. I knew to turn the book right side up probably before I could get my own body upright on two legs — perhaps a sign that a writer-editor was born right along with me.
My love of words grew throughout elementary school; in fact, I was in my own reading group heading into middle school. Enter the summer before my freshman year of high school, when everything changed, and I knew where my heart’s desire would lead me. Nerd alert — I was invited by my soon-to-be English teacher and first writing mentor to attend the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association summer camp at the University of Missouri-Columbia, which houses one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country.
The week-long intensive camp gathered the best and brightest from around high schools in Missouri to learn about news feature writing, pagination, editing and more. What we didn’t learn was digital media — because it didn’t exist then. There was no social, no talk of SEO, no organic vs. programmatic — aspects of my career that I didn’t even know I would love yet as a young 14-year-old pup — signs of the evolution and constant change of my industry.
Moving throughout the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in many firsts in my career. I was the first in my family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Saint Louis University. I took in first-hand information about genres I would never otherwise research: drag racing, bridal, parenting, cell phone towers, vaping and more.
I was the first female COO/editor in chief of a niche magazine, which was also the pioneer publication in this particular industry. I also solely wrote the first-ever China and European issues of said publication. While traveling the world (36 countries and counting!) I have experienced many personal firsts-accomplishments through my freelance career while writing and editing for clients in coffee houses, restaurants, airports and bars. I obtained my TEFL, which allowed me to pay my love for English forward in teaching foreign learners in China, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Chicago (so far) who want to better their lives by learning English in order to change jobs, get promotions, go to college, travel more or whatever their hearts desire — all through this beautiful language.
Now, I’ve found a home at Brightly Creative, writing about the food and beverage industry, a category that is exciting and just downright fun to explore. The 14-year-old girl in me has never lost her love in writing for the audience, and if you ever need to find me, I’ll probably be somewhere reading the print — not the digital — version of the AP Stylebook. Some habits never change.
CATEGORY: Brightly Creative
