[ad_1] Small town girl Friends and family who know me well aren’t surprised that I publish The Repository, a weekly email about WordPress. You see, I grew up in Zeehan, a one-way street of a town on the west coast of Tasmania, the island that’s at the bottom of Australia. The population at the time was around 2,000 and everyone knew everyone. My Dad worked at the nearby tin mine and my Mum wrangled me and my two younger brothers while working as a bookkeeper and volunteering at the local neighbourhood centre. Dad loved gadgets. He was always following us around with whatever video camera was new at the time. He bought a CD player when they were first released (John Farnham was high on rotation). He also bought an Amiga 600 (I was obsessed with Golden Axe and Lemmings). It wasn’t long before our computer was replaced with a Windows 95 machine. When Mum wasn’t doing her word processing, I was writing stories. I loved stories and had my heart set on working at a newspaper one day. At 14, I started helping out with the weekly community newsletter. Locals would drop off their submissions at shops around town and then I’d design each A5 booklet in Microsoft Publisher, print them off and fold them. Locals could then buy a copy for 20 cents. It was fun for a while but man, folding and stapling several dozen copies was a chore! I received an Australia Day Community Award for my efforts. Writing and designing the newsletter led to playing with web pages and teaching myself HTML and CSS. Since we didn’t have the internet at home, I saved up my pocket money to buy those magazines you could get with CDs attached. At 18, I went to university. I clearly recall speaking to a journalism lecturer at an open day about my interest in completing an arts degree with a double major in journalism and computer science. She laughed and asked, “Why would you want to do that?” I guess my Mum’s stubbornness also rubbed off on me. I graduated with my degree (and double major!) and went on to work as a newspaper reporter for Fairfax and later News Ltd. I loved working as a journalist. As much as I enjoyed reporting rounds and covering politics for a while, it was a joy and a privilege writing other people’s stories when I moved to community news reporting and editing. But all good things must come to an eye. I eventually left news reporting, disillusioned that I was working harder than ever for a wage that would never buy me a house, and I was filing stories that were half-finished because they had to go up ASAP for social media. Hello WordPress! It was time to explore my other major. I landed a job writing for WPMU DEV, a main-stay of the WordPress business community. It was my first time working professionally with WordPress after many years creating websites for family, friends and community groups. I learned a lot. I had the writing chops and knew how to use WordPress (I’d come a long way since my hand-coding days!), but it was a baptism of fire learning to become a power user and create top-notch content for our mostly agency and freelancer audience. Not long after starting at WPMU DEV, I went to my first WordCamp, WordCamp Melbourne 2013. Walking into the event, I felt way out of my depth, especially as I’m an introvert attending alone. I stayed for a couple of sessions and then left. Living in Australia, it’s not easy getting to WordCamps because they’re so far away! Not to be put off by my first experience, I went to WordCamp Europe 2015 in Seville, Spain, and had an incredible time hanging out with colleagues, meeting new people, and melting in the extreme heat. Suffice to say, WPMU DEV was a fun place to work, but eventually it was time to move on. I was ready to go out on my own and launched Words By Birds, a copy and content studio. I worked mostly with WordPress businesses, producing high-quality content, copywriting and strategies. One of my favourite clients was MailPoet, headed up at the time by co-founder Kim Gjerstad. We clicked immediately. We’d both worked as journalists and talked a lot about starting some kind of newsletter together that focused on WordPress news. Eventually, we stopped talking and started doing. On November 8, 2019, we sent the first issue of The Repository to 49 subscribers. Kim handled the business and marketing side of things while I focused on writing. We were a great team, and it’s a collaboration I’m very grateful for, especially in hindsight. Not too long into The Repository’s history, I took a few weeks off to focus on another important project. My son was born in February 2020, and you can guess what happens next. As the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off, it felt like the world went into hibernation with me. I happily spent my days at home learning to be a mum without the pressure of the outside world. It felt like great timing. Well, that lasted six weeks. Soon, I was back at it, writing The Repository. I read articles and scrolled social media during the week and spent Fridays writing. With a newborn often attached to me, I had to find creative ways to write. When my son was really little, I could pop him in a wrap and wear him while I typed at my kitchen table. I wrote while he napped. I wrote at night. I even wrote with only one hand when I needed to breastfeed. Like all good businesses in the WordPress space, MailPoet was acquired. Kim graciously gave me his share in The Repository and left WordPress to work on other things. It was also around this time that my career took a turn and I stopped working full-time in the WordPress space.
Continue readingA Journalist’s Journey into WordPress
