About
District of Sooke Campaign 2018
Website + Social Media
Graduating with a journalism degree from Carleton University in 1979, I began my career in Ottawa and then Toronto as a staff writer, publicist and magazine/newsletter editor for government, broadcast and music industry employers. Moving to the west coast in 1989, I freelanced from downtown Vancouver for more than a decade. I now work from my home office not far from the ocean in the southwest corner of Vancouver Island.
I'm now effectively retired from freelancing as I focus on my responsibilities as an elected Councillor for the District of Sooke. Rewarding and extended volunteerism with Transition Sooke, the Edward Milne Community School Society and the Sooke Farmland Trust Society have occupied much of the last decade.
During the period 2000 to 2017, I specialized in copywriting for British Columbia tourism organizations, producing visitor guides and website text for Tourism Vancouver Island, Northern Vancouver Island Tourism, Oceanside Tourism and Tourism B.C. I wrote articles for Westworld Magazine, EAT Magazine, Applaud!, the Vancouver Sun, the Calgary Herald's Swerve weekly, and did contract work with Pharmasave National, the Multiple Myeloma Vancouver Island Support Group, and the City of Burnaby.
I spent the '90s in various editorial roles with The Record, Canada’s music industry weekly trade magazine, winding up as its senior editor in its final years as a print publication. I’ve written regular music columns for Vancouver, Network, Music Express and Teen Generation magazines,and contributed as a freelancer to such business trade publications as Billboard, Variety and Music Business International.
Over three decades, I've had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of creative, accomplished individuals. Among my assignments have been press kits, investor packages, annual reports, feature articles, department items, columns and record company promotional material. Editors hire me occasionally to rewrite other writers whose work needs reconstructive surgery.
I’m grateful for the freedom to live in an electronic cottage with my wife Carolyn Bateman within wind-warning proximity of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, an hour's serpentine drive west of Victoria. I was a candidate for the District of Sooke Council in the November, 2014 municipal election.
My passions over the 20 years have focused on happily obsessive and rewarding relationships with yoga and the 5Rhythms dance practice. I'm also an enthusiastic fair-weather cyclist, enjoy Vipassana meditation retreat weekends, and have been listening to all kinds of contemporary music since first hearing The Beatles and Rolling Stones as a schoolboy residing in NW11, London circa 1966.
Website + Social Media
Graduating with a journalism degree from Carleton University in 1979, I began my career in Ottawa and then Toronto as a staff writer, publicist and magazine/newsletter editor for government, broadcast and music industry employers. Moving to the west coast in 1989, I freelanced from downtown Vancouver for more than a decade. I now work from my home office not far from the ocean in the southwest corner of Vancouver Island.
I'm now effectively retired from freelancing as I focus on my responsibilities as an elected Councillor for the District of Sooke. Rewarding and extended volunteerism with Transition Sooke, the Edward Milne Community School Society and the Sooke Farmland Trust Society have occupied much of the last decade.
During the period 2000 to 2017, I specialized in copywriting for British Columbia tourism organizations, producing visitor guides and website text for Tourism Vancouver Island, Northern Vancouver Island Tourism, Oceanside Tourism and Tourism B.C. I wrote articles for Westworld Magazine, EAT Magazine, Applaud!, the Vancouver Sun, the Calgary Herald's Swerve weekly, and did contract work with Pharmasave National, the Multiple Myeloma Vancouver Island Support Group, and the City of Burnaby.
I spent the '90s in various editorial roles with The Record, Canada’s music industry weekly trade magazine, winding up as its senior editor in its final years as a print publication. I’ve written regular music columns for Vancouver, Network, Music Express and Teen Generation magazines,and contributed as a freelancer to such business trade publications as Billboard, Variety and Music Business International.
Over three decades, I've had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of creative, accomplished individuals. Among my assignments have been press kits, investor packages, annual reports, feature articles, department items, columns and record company promotional material. Editors hire me occasionally to rewrite other writers whose work needs reconstructive surgery.
I’m grateful for the freedom to live in an electronic cottage with my wife Carolyn Bateman within wind-warning proximity of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, an hour's serpentine drive west of Victoria. I was a candidate for the District of Sooke Council in the November, 2014 municipal election.
My passions over the 20 years have focused on happily obsessive and rewarding relationships with yoga and the 5Rhythms dance practice. I'm also an enthusiastic fair-weather cyclist, enjoy Vipassana meditation retreat weekends, and have been listening to all kinds of contemporary music since first hearing The Beatles and Rolling Stones as a schoolboy residing in NW11, London circa 1966.
| resume_jb.pdf |