Stories give form to our lived experiences, stories make our complex human condition more palatable. I have always loved telling stories, at the age of 16 in a creative writing class in high school I was able to make three separate people cry just from a story I had written. It was at this moment, one class of several that day, I knew with certainty that words have power and a well-told story could make people feel something. I continued my writing through university education at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, where I studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Screenwriting at the school of film and television.

This improved my visual thinking and use of words to paint a vivid picture in the mind of the reader. Upon graduation, my two parents, life-long journalists and authors, gifted me a set of Parker pens engraved with my initials. My upbringing was not all candy and pocket money for chores, but my parents through any challenge they went through always impressed on me the importance of unbiased and nuanced writing. In 2016, post-graduation I travelled to Havana in Cuba, Buenos Aires in Argentina, and stayed a short while in Brazil.

I attended a housewarming party with my older brother and walked home through Brooklyn at 3 in the morning. I have gazed upon the brightest stars in Mexico, and my mind objected to any notion of sleep with the lively jungle and warm breeze so near my bedroom window. This sense of life is all around us, the proof in nature of our living Earth, reaffirmed my desire for more lived experience, more travel, more seeking, more finding.

I have been rushing towards anything which could make my heart skip a beat as far back as I can remember. In late 2016 I met a very sincere and considerate romance and we travelled to Berlin together in search of new opportunities, and creative endeavours, a budding love which evolved over four years, many of which were spent living together with a handful of others in Amsterdam. I was desperately trying to justify my decision to leave Melbourne, Australia with a family back home who only grew more concerned as the years went by.

When the pandemic of 2020 first made itself known to the world 75,000 Australians across Europe flew back home. I did not, my heart would not let me, and my soul would not allow me to snuff out a still-burning love. I remained in Amsterdam throughout the global pandemic. As the months lingered like a shadow in the corner of the bedroom, the home we shared became a workplace for both of us. My partner and I worked together at ZOO Magazine, a very tasteful quarterly magazine.

I still contribute art, design and events writing to which I applied to roles in both editorial and visual media, interviewing constantly. After one and a half years of scattered rewards for my efforts, I succeeded. I was hired as a content coordinator for Paramount (formerly ViacomCBS). Here I made wonderful friends and learned a great amount of the inner workings behind their top-tier database of over 9000 films and series.

I moved back to continue my life and writing in Melbourne in 2022. I am currently 28 years of age and revel in my work having felt a wondrous deal more and for it I am grateful. I write articles for Meer that can make us reflect on life’s art, aesthetic wonders and our shifting culture with its broad scope in our diverse and poetic world.