Frequently Asked Questions
(Not Really)
“What do you do, exactly? And why are you starting now?”
I write, and I write well (not to toot my own horn).
I’m an aspiring copywriter who has spent more time than I wanted to in banking (which was zero years, zero months, zero weeks, and zero days). I fell into it because I needed a job after graduating, and I was able to grab a job at BNY Mellon that allowed me to edit and tweak documents. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was a start. It was an okay job, but I stayed because of an awesome manager and even more awesome coworkers.
When that job announced a wave of layoffs, I accepted a completely unrelated banking job at Barclays, which made me miserable. It was a lot of reorganizing and reconciling, not to mention soulless. Imposter Syndrome settled in like the nasty bug it is, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Now, I just want to water my drying roots and return to what I love.
“Why copywriting?”
I didn’t realize until recently, but I’ve actually been practicing copywriting for a long time! In addition to writing novels, I create additional pieces for context and story development. These include:
A welcome email and roommate questionnaire “from” the Director of Residence Life
A handbook for a boarding school in the Vermont mountains—including rules, regulations, and a complete academic overview
A heartfelt letter from my protagonist to her best friend detailing her thoughts and emotions during the night of her (best friend’s) murder
A satire on a novel I wrote and completed when I was fifteen years old, complete with humorous commentary, criticisms, and critiques on my amateur writing and horrible plot and character development
An advertisement for a food court opening for a boarding school aimed at hungry students with rich parents
If I write copy for fun, that’s surely a sign I’d enjoy it professionally. Now, don’t get me wrong: I am fully aware that copywriting, as a career, will not always be fun. There will be projects I’d rather fling out the window. There will be pieces I dread writing for one reason or another. However, I know for sure my heart and soul will be planted in each piece I write. I was made for this. I want to do this.
“How did you learn to write?”
I just happened to enjoy writing more than some others, so I wrote a lot. As a kid, I read a lot of books, which I assume is why I always aced spelling and grammar tests in school. Eventually, I moved from writing micro-fiction in elementary school to short stories in middle school to a full-length novel in high school (which was NOT great, by the way). The cliché is correct: to become a better writer, you have to write.
“What’s your education background?”
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English with a concentration in creative writing from SUNY New Paltz. There, I took lots of fun, challenging courses that really popped my ego such as Craft of Fiction, Craft of Creative Non-Fiction, and Practical Grammar.
Currently, I’m working on getting a professional certificate from Coursera in Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-Commerce so I can channel my creative ideas into something productive.
“Do you have any real work samples?”
Not yet, but I’m working on that! That’s why my portfolio contains all conceptual pieces to demonstrate what I’m capable of. Check it out!