When the time came to choose a career, I was a little lost. I didn’t have a good sense of what I wanted or which of my skills could be lucrative. Eventually, long after my peers had settled into their first “real” jobs, I decided that I wanted to be a writer in some capacity. My aunt, an entrepreneur with broad connections, helped me set up three informational interviews to explore my options. One was with Joe Epley, who was known at the time as the “Godfather of PR” in North Carolina.

The Godfather

We sat in the sitting room adjacent to his office. It had a couch, two wingback chairs, and a full bar stocked with a wide variety of adult beverages, including real Russian vodka and a bottle of Scotch older than I was at the time. After a lovely chat where I got to ask a thousand questions about his job, he said he was hiring for an entry-level position and asked if I wanted to apply. Of course, I did!

The application process at Epley Associates was the best hiring experience I’ve ever had. It included the typical and necessary series of interviews, which always made me feel like a wet cat stuck in a barrel. I don’t perform well when I have to talk about myself. But then came the test portion. Joe put me in an office with a computer and a stack of background information on a fictional client. Then he gave me a time limit and three writing assignments: an introduction for the client CEO, a news release, and an op-ed. I aced the writing test.

Well, “aced” is probably a strong word. I hadn’t studied journalism in college and didn’t know AP Style. But I got to show rather than tell and had fun doing it. Joe saw how my brain worked and how I approached storytelling. He knew he could teach me the rest and offered me the job.

Joe and my other colleagues were wonderful mentors and taught me the ins and outs of public relations and marketing communications. I learned AP Style and created all sorts of content for our clients: news releases, op-eds, speeches, strategic plans, brochures, newsletters, print and broadcast ad copy, web copy, and white papers. Since our clients came from a wide range of industries, I learned to adopt different voices and tones in my writing depending on each client’s brand.

Center of the Action

After seven challenging and wonderful years, I resigned and took the summer off to spend time with my kids who were three and five at the time. When I went back to work, I landed a position at the Charlotte Chamber as director of communications. Business-oriented Charlotteans used to have a saying: there’s the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Chamber Party. The chamber brought people together to make our city the best place to live, work, and play. It had a hand in bringing new jobs to town, bringing in professional sports teams, hosting networking events for large and small businesses, lobbying local and state government for not only pro-business but also pro-citizen legislation, raising money for and running school bond campaigns … the list goes on. It was the center of all the action.

As director of communications, you’d think I was in charge of media relations. Fortunately, I was not. While I loved writing news releases and articles, I hated the phone calls and schmoozing necessary to maintain relationships with the media. We had a whole separate person in charge of that. Instead, I was in charge of our quarterly business magazine, annual newcomers’ guide, and monthly newsletter, and later the e-newsletter, social media, and blog.

This is where I fell in love with telling small-business stories. Our local business media concentrated its coverage on a few key sectors, leaving most of our small-business members struggling for earned media. I get it—accountants, insurance brokers, and promotional products companies aren’t really “making news.” But they still had great stories to tell. And I was the lucky lady who got to find and publish them. Sometimes I even got to write them.

Finding My Spark

Another seven years later (hmm, a trend?), I left the chamber and spent six months resting, doing odd jobs, and figuring out my next big move. A position opened up at SPARK Publications, the creative firm that provided layout and design services for the chamber’s magazine. SPARK Publications wanted to launch a local business magazine and expand its book publishing capacity. Hello, pick me!

We created the concept for b2bTRIBE magazine and produced six glorious issues. Writing, editing, interviewing, creative direction—I got to do it all! And that’s not even counting the books. We helped independent authors publish more than sixty books during my time there. Those authors were some of the most interesting and passionate people I’ve ever met.

I was a book doula of sorts, guiding authors through the publishing process and helping them introduce their book babies to the world. I edited a majority of those books and proofread the rest. Cover designs were handled primarily by the team of designers, but they usually hadn’t read the book. I made sure the art would speak to the intended audiences and set the right expectations for what they’d find inside.

Since SPARK Publications’ primary business was designing magazines, the designers didn’t always have time to handle book design issues and edits for me. So I learned the design side to help myself. The designers taught me best practices and techniques for layout and design, and I started handling the interiors on my own. And then I taught the designers best practices and techniques for e-book exports since reflowable EPUBs were new territory at the time.

Some editing here, some design there—the mix lit up a place in my brain I hadn’t known was dark.

Finding Balance

Another seven years later (oh, yes, definitely a trend), I resigned and spent the next six months sleeping. I’d loved my job but had burned out hard. Apparently, I’d been riding a seven-year burnout cycle. This time, however, a few months of recovery wasn’t going to cut it. First, I had to figure out why I was burning out. Then I had to make some changes.

One big thing I learned was balance. I’d always thought I did a great job with work/life balance. But once I made self-healing my job, I saw how off kilter I was. And I knew that working for myself was my next step.

I can’t say that I’ve fully sorted out the work/life balance equation. I’ll always be a work in progress, one way or another. In the mean time, I’m having the time of my life helping authors, publishers, and other businesses create attractive, interesting, well-written books and other publications.

So that’s my story—part of it anyway. If you want more of the personal side, check out my poetry chapbook Used Cow for Sale on my books page.

I can’t wait to read your story! Schedule some time with me, so we can get to know each other.