What’s next?
What’s next?
With endings come new beginnings. Here's a little life update.
In the last couple of weeks, I wrapped up my fellowship at Audubon magazine. In many ways, this was an opportunity that I had been working towards for many years. And I’m grateful to have had the chance to experience it.
As with all endings, people have been asking me what’s next. They expect more of the same. More birds. More wildlife. More quirky Alice sass. But what’s maybe not been apparent is that in the past several months, a boatload of change has been bubbling under the surface.
I’ve had an inkling for a while now that working in wildlife conservation was never really the career move for me. Even with this fellowship, which I’ve had a blast at, I still feel a lot of distance between the goals of this industry, and what feels personally important—the difference that I want to make in the world. I’ll keep my thoughts on this vague for now. Maybe I’ll write about in more detail one day.
And so with this ending, I’ve decided it was time to take a break from this field I’ve dedicated so many of my years to. It’s bittersweet, but it is a decision that I’ve taken years to finalize. I’ve been making slow shifts in preparation for this, which from the outside looking in, may be a little jarring or confusing (or maybe not? idk.) It’s just that there’s stuff in my brain that’s always been there but never expressed. I’m slowly learning how to express those things now.
So what’s next? Well, I’m going to be reentering the full-time freelance world as a journalist! My plan is to start writing about topics that have always been significant to me but I’ve never really had a chance to fully explore: mental health, social justice, public health, immigration, identity, etc, etc. (i.e. published this story and this story earlier this year. And please send me story ideas!) Truly, I am very excited for what’s to come.
Of course, there will still be a silly little wildlife story here and there. Those will always be fun to write (animals are weird and cool!!!) and that will always be a part of me.
Onwards and upwards.