Where’s your hometown and where do you live currently?

Questions like this should be easy. I fear my response proves otherwise. I was born in Edmonton, Canada but when I was just a couple months old, we moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and then on to Dubai, UAE, where I spent my childhood. I finished high school in Calgary, Canada but left as quickly as I could - first to Toronto for university, then Denmark, India and now London, UK. I’ve lived in London since 2009. It’s where I met my partner, where I had my children, and the only place I can picture growing old in. So even though it took me a while to get here, there’s no other hometown I can imagine except this one. Yeesh. Long AND cheesy. You can take the girl out of Canada… 

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In a few sentences, describe what you do and where you work.

I walked in the door at Pentagram Design in London as a client 13 years ago, and today I’m an Associate Partner and the studio’s first Head of Brand Narrative. Practically, that means our small, brilliant team works alongside the Partners to deliver brand strategies and stories, names, verbal identities, copy and campaigns for Pentagram’s roster of clients. 

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What are the skills that make the biggest difference in your work?

Gosh. This one’s tough. I have two competing instincts here: List the skills I do have (and risk coming across as self-congratulatory), or list the skills I wish I’d mastered (and risk sounding overly modest, or worse, underqualified). You’ll just have to guess where these fall. Attentiveness. Optimism. Empathy. Courage.

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What has it been like to navigate and build a writing team in a design-focused agency?

Humbling, and rewarding. There’s nothing quite like seeing words you’ve helped shape come to life in the hands of the best designers in the world. The Partners and their teams at Pentagram elevate our writing with extraordinary craft and care. I hope, and believe, our team returns the favour, helping the design not just look good, but land better. When it works, it’s not copy supporting design, or design decorating words; it’s one shared idea, expressed in two languages.

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What’s a piece of advice that still guides you? 

There’s this Gramsci quote I think about a lot: “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” It’s a pretty accurate reflection of the creative process in copywriting, and a helpful refrain in trickier moments. 

You need intellectual pessimism to look at a project with clear eyes (or a side eye, perhaps), to spot gaps, ask uncomfortable questions and never settle for ‘good enough’.

But then you need the optimistic will to keep going. To believe that you can still find the line, the shape, the structure that moves someone. That despite the feedback, the deadlines, you can still make something that connects.

It’s a tension between critical thinking and creative faith. To see the world as it truly is, and - despite all evidence to the contrary - believe you can make it better. 

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What’s your favorite way to procrastinate?

Unfortunately, it’s writing. If I’ve got a deadline for one thing, you’ll find me writing feverishly on something else entirely. It defies logic. Right now, I should be working on a pitch for tomorrow. But here I am, staring at my own belly button and talking to you, dear reader.

What’s one thing about the industry you wish people would be more honest about?

Pay. 

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What’s one belief you had early in your career (about the industry or your own work) that has shifted over time? 

Look, I’m a firstborn daughter, a Geriatric Millennial and a writer with an anxiety condition. Naturally, I was brought up thinking that success meant doing exactly what I was told - by my mum, by my teacher. And naturally, that posture is how I faced much of my early professional life, doing exactly what I was told - by my boss, by my client. 

My career has been a study in unlearning so much early conditioning. It doesn’t serve our clients to just do exactly what they say. They can use ChatGPT for that. 

I’ve logged enough hours to know the best work happens when we stop trying to please, and start trying to understand. It comes when we read what’s not written, dig into the unresolved, and mine for that flicker of emotional truth buried beneath the brief. 

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What life moments have had the biggest impact on how you see the world and your work?

It’s all copy, as they say. Or maybe it’s all data for the LLM.

Seriously though, every big life shift - becoming a parent, navigating burnout, facing uncertainty, feeling joy, finding yourself in a new place where words fail you - all of it has shaped how I show up to the work. 

These experiences, especially the ones that return you to your animal body and your fragile, tender heart, sharpen empathy. They deepen your sense of what it means to be overwhelmed, delighted, uncertain, hopeful, human. That emotional texture is everything. 

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As someone who’s been both the client and the creative, how has that shaped or influenced your process today? 

I hope it’s provided me with perspective and empathy, in both directions.

Because our first and most important job is to build a relationship that can weather the journey. It can get a little choppy! Creative tension, shifting feedback, competing incentives, tough calls. When you hit those moments, you want a partner that stays in the boat and rows harder together, not one that jumps ship at the first wave.

Do personal experiences ever show up in your writing—intentionally or not? How do you navigate that overlap?

‍I talk a lot about ‘word crushes’ and ‘word allergies’ - those phrases or ideas we can’t help returning to, or instinctively avoid. What I love about them is that they quietly betray the author’s inner worldview. 

In my case, my word crushes tend to orbit the same themes: a kind of active hope, a belief in people and in collective responsibility, in gentleness, forgiveness and the possibility of positive transformation. If you look closely at my work, those breadcrumbs are always there. 

My word allergies tend to come from watching the language of capitalism quietly infect every type of communication surface. Words like ‘scale’, ‘optimise’, ‘leverage’, even ‘impact’ can start to feel hollow when they flatter the productivity myth and flatten human experience into a metric. It’s not that those ideas are inherently bad (though ‘optimisation’ is really not a goal I have in life), it’s just that when they become the default vocabulary, we risk forgetting what we’re really here to do.

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Can you tell us about your creative interests or projects outside of work? How do these outlets interact with your work day-to-day? 

Last year, I had my first children’s book published by Scholastic. It sharpened so many of the skills I need in my work as a copywriter: brevity, clarity, the ability to tell a great story. 

I want to do more of it. 

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Where can The Subtext readers keep up with you? (blog, social channels, linkedin, website, etc) 

Until a few months ago, I think my LinkedIn profile still said I was a server at Chili’s Texas Grill. Which should tell you I’m not exactly the most active professional user of the platform. But come say hi there. We can discuss Chili’s decision to discontinue the deep fried mac & cheese appetiser in 2006. Or, you know, whatever you want to talk about. 

Better yet, if you're in London or nearby, join me on April 24 when The Subtext is hosting its first UK event at our Pentagram studio!'

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Bonus Round

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What do you listen to while working?

My own inner critic and/or political podcasts. They’re both equally brutal these days.

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What’s your most creatively inspired time of day?

Unfortunately, the rhythm of my days has been permanently altered by the arrival of my daughter in 2020. It’s 1-3am or bust with me. I’m in meetings from 9am-5pm, doing my best to listen, learn and lead the team. I put my kid to bed, then my writing workday begins. Finally, in those dim, borrowed hours, my brain slows down enough for the words to find me. 

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What’s one writing rule you love to break, and one you never do?

The rule I never blanch at breaking? Grammar. Once you’ve mastered the framework, you have earned the freedom to bend it. Sentence fragments, run-ons, intentional repetition… when used with care, they create rhythm, tone and voice that a more rigid application of grammar just can’t deliver. The approach is about control, not chaos.

The rule I hope we never break is clarity. If the audience doesn’t get it, it doesn’t matter how beautiful or brilliant you think it is. Obscurity isn’t depth - it’s just bad writing in slightly better clothes.

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Do you have a personal mantra?

My mum is the one you go to when you need a good mantra. She’s basically a cheer captain crossed with a golden retriever. Just the sunniest, most supportive person, who says things like ‘You don’t get rainbows without a little rain.’ and ‘It’s okay to be scared, just don’t let it stop you.’ She’s a walking Live. Laugh. Love. wall-hanging. 

The thing I hear echo in my own head most often: What kind of writer are you if the only thing you can make beautiful is on the page?

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If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing?

Writing is a lifelong vocation. A bit like religious life, except the monastery is a coffee shop with bad Wi-Fi and the daily prayer is ‘please approve this version’. Writers will always write, whether or not their words pay their way. 

To answer your question, I imagine I’d still be torturing myself at a keyboard - just doing it with a different email signature. Probably working in the public or charity sector. Maybe a speechwriter. 

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Describe your creative process in three words.

Stubbornly hopeful unfolding.

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