Virtually every day, I go out on a dog walk and start putting together the start of a blog post in my head. But I never get them written. It’s not so much writer’s block getting in my way as a feeling of pointlessness. My schtick is persuasive writing, which I had the great pleasure of doing for almost a decade in Victoria’s daily newspaper as a columnist and editorial writer back before I gave it all up for a chance to get closer to the action on social-justice issues. Now I do communications work and lots of writing for non-profits with noble visions of a better world, because I want to be doing that, too. The draw of persuasive writing as a tool for social change, however, is the presumption that there are people out there open to being persuaded. It’s a means of bringing important things to people’s attention and maybe shifting their thinking a little. It did used to feel like that was possible in years past. Yes, people who hated what I had to say would phone (and later email) fro...
I'm a communications strategist and writer with a journalism background, a drifter's spirit, and a growing sense of alarm at where this world is going. I am happiest when writing pieces that identify, contextualize and background societal problems big and small in hopes of helping us at least slow our deepening crises.