In exciting and life-altering news, on May 15, I’ll be starting a permanent, full-time role as the Writer/Editor at Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC). CFCC is a non-profit that addresses food insecurity. Their work includes advocating for action on a root cause of food insecurity: poverty. Needless to say, I am raring to start in this role.
So what is going to happen to my freelance work? I have freelanced for the past 30 years. Even when I have worked in permanent roles, I have still taken on select freelance jobs from time to time (this evokes a pair of hashtags I’ve sometimes used about my freelance work: #conslutancy #notatypo). So I am not stopping my freelance work but restricting it to occasional non-urgent, smaller jobs. Such jobs might include reviewing a proposal, copyediting a journal article, formatting a report, doing a sensitivity edit of an essay, writing part of an arts funding proposal (but not the entire proposal), etc.
If you’d like to discuss the possibility of hiring me, please book a time to chat with me. Let’s see if we can make things work.
*
You might also be wondering what’s in store for my creative practice. I plan to write fiction in the mornings. I’m currently living in St. John’s, Ktaqmkuk (colonially known as “Newfoundland”). It’s 1.5 hours ahead of Tkaronto (colonially known as “Toronto”), where the CFCC office is. Taking advantage of this time difference, I’ll write for 1.5 hours before starting my day job at 10:30 am Newfoundland Time (note: I’m seeking some morning writing buddies to turn these sessions into online co-writing sessions—please contact me if you’re interested).
I am not a morning person, so this new plan will be an adventure. But where fiction writing is concerned, I am the adventurous type. In fact, fiction writing is the area of my life where I have always been able to tolerate the most risk and even go outright in search of risk.
*
Although I have often relished being “at risk” in my fiction writing, my new day job is already relieving me of the financial risks of freelancing that have become harder for me to tolerate in recent years. Immigrating to Canada as a gig worker created financial pressures that have worn me down. I have also been professionally and socially isolated.
In a couple of weeks, I will start receiving a regular paycheck and be an ongoing part of a team of colleagues. The last time I experienced this was in the late 2000s.
My new job is exciting, life-altering, and such a relief.
