We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amy Pelsinsky a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amy , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)? Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style.

My first internship in college broke open a world of possibilities for me. I spent a summer working as a reporter at an independent newspaper in Baltimore. The editor Alice Cherbonnier, an alumna of my college, was a curious, eclectic, and energetic writer and intellectual. She handed me assignments like I had been writing at the New York Times for 20 years. She had her hands on every aspect of the newspaper, from idea to print, and opened it all to me.

My first assignment was to report on legislation to limit logging in the Montana wilderness. I soon had a thick printout of the bill in my hand and was on the phone with Congressional offices securing interviews with Senators and the heads of environmental organizations.

I wrote a review of a book of short stories a local author who wrote about growing up in Washington, D.C. I enjoyed the book so much that I brought it to a book signing. The author wrote, “You were the first to truly appreciate my work.” That man, Edward P. Jones, won a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction a decade later.

That summer, an editor and mentor who put no limits on herself, set me off into the world with no limits on what I could do. I learned how to encourage, trust and expect the best from people. I learned that words have power and impact. And I learned that writers have an important role in seeing and learning and telling to help make the world a better place for all of us.

I went on to be a reporter and editor in community newspapers. I won awards for investigative reporting on the commercialization funeral industry and for feature writing for a story about a man who lived large dying in hospice. I went on to work with many other great editors. But it all began with Alice who saw that spark of curiosity, passion for justice, creativity, and skill in me, and I thank her for fanning those flames so they would burn bright and strong for not only my career but my life.

Amy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

From a community newspaper reporter and magazine editor to communications leader for higher education and nonprofits, I’ve been honing the craft of writing and editing for more than 20 years. I make the written word better and communications more engaging and have won awards for feature writing, magazine editing, and web marketing.

I offer all that expertise now through my writing and editing business Charmed. I specialize in content writing, copyediting, and proofreading with an expertise in environmental science, sustainability, and climate communications. I am especially interested in helping solopreneurs launch their businesses with effective marketing copy and web presence and editing books in the spirituality and self-help genre.

I am a writer at heart and enjoy freelance writing for magazines about my true passions, travel and food, and I blog about my offbeat adventures at Quirk Travels.com. I recently published my first children’s picture book, The Great Cat Roundup, about too many cats on an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

I knew I had something good with the children’s book I published this past year, The Great Cat Roundup, when I was shopping it around to merchants near the Chesapeake Bay. I was talking to a manager of a gift shop in a tourist town when the first person in line at the register asked to see what we were talking about. When everyone saw the cute illustration of the tuxedo cat with the blue eyes on the front, they clamored for a copy, right then and there. I sold five copies, cash in hand, on the spot. The store manager, wide-eyed as the exchange happened in front of her, said she would certainly recommend it to the owner since we had proven interest on the spot.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met the illustrator of The Great Cat Roundup, Lisa Pupa, when we worked together at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She was a designer and I managed public relations, and we remained friends after moving on to other endeavors. Her illustration style was so charming and she had a degree in publication design, so I knew she would be the perfect partner producing and publishing this book. The whole process was a labor of love and took a few years to complete, but we are both excited to share it with the world and have it be so well received.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charmedwritingediting.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quirktravels/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheGreatCatRoundup/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-pelsinsky/

Image Credits
Amy Pelsinsky (DeVona Saiter), Amy on assignment (Cheryl Nemazie)