About me

I have been telling stories since I was a kid, at first on stage which led to pursuing an undergraduate degree in theatre directing at the University of Victoria. I worked in Western Canada and then in San Diego where I once had a job as a blood cook (official title) for a gory production of a Jacobean play for the avante garde Sledgehammer Theatre. It taught me that creating great experiences can get creatively (and literally) messy but is always worth the effort.

I learned so much from working in theatre production and writing plays. I understood story structure and pacing, and what it means to hear whether your story is working or not in real-time. An audience will tell you. And you'll either be elated or crushed. But that's how I got better.

When social media exploded and the digital revolution grabbed hold of the world's attention, I was excited to see how storytelling could inspire audiences in new and creative ways. I studied digital marketing at New York University, taught social media at Royal Roads and formed my company, landing a transmedia campaign for BC Transit as my first big project. I traveled the province recording and filming rider stories and featured them in on an interactive website. Happily, the project ended up winning a national communications award. In the process, I'd discovered transmedia in the work of Lance Weiler and Dr. Henry Jenkins, who were exploring transmedia storytelling and pushing the boundaries of technology and story forms, extending the very idea of what a story could be. I was hooked.

As I started helping clients translate their stories into digital experiences, I got to work with amazing destination organizations like Destination Canada, Destination BC, Travel Alberta, Tourism New Brunswick, Ontario's RT04, and the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism. Since then, I've also been a collaborating partner with the Tourism Café, partnering up to coach, train, and learn while helping tourism operators across Canada find their core story and bring their visitor experiences to life.

I also had the privilege of being Canada's first digital storyteller in higher ed, where I led the narrative strategy for UBC for nearly seven years and produced more than 37 feature stories, developed the first comprehensive brand resource for the UBC community (UBC.brand.ca), and did two large-scale corporate website refreshes. From bringing cows on campus to educate students about sustainable farming to organizing a 1000 seat sit down dinner down the length of the University's Main Mall, I produced immersive, experiential stories that spanned web, interactive, digital, print and analog. I won numerous communication awards and was nominated for a Webby for my content creation and strategy. I also established an internal storytelling curriculum for more than 350+ communicators and shared my strategies on research storytelling through an omni-media lens.

Today, my approach as a trainer, strategist, and facilitator is always grounded in storytelling. Story touches everything including content strategy, information architecture, user research, brand development, design, copywriting, digital marketing, the signs you develop for your shop to the thank you email you send to a customer. Everything. By using story as your foundation, you can build lasting relationships with your audience, no matter where they engage with you.