Have suitcase, will travel.

My name is Emma. I like vintage furniture, drinking tea, eating good food, reading, working out and travelling. Oh, and writing, but that should go without saying.

I grew up in Valleyview, Alberta, a town of 1,800 people north of the 55th parallel in Canada. As far as I could tell, there was no valley and no view, but that’s beside the point. I spent a lot of time dreaming of how someday I was going to change the world.

After high school, I moved 650 kilometres south to Calgary, where I studied journalism. I spent the next eight years working as a reporter and editor on newspapers and magazines in Canada and the U.K.

In 2007, I created a column and website called The Green Guide for the Calgary Herald. Providing practical environmental advice, The Green Guide was a labour of love I put together in between laying out and editing newspaper pages. Much to my dismay, my pet project ended up winning international recognition from the Online Journalism Review, the International Newspaper Marketing Association, the Canadian Newspaper Association and the Emerald Foundation.

My work on The Green Guide ignited a desire in me to know more about energy and the environment, so in late 2009, I left the Herald to help lead the communications efforts of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian sustainable energy think tank. Opportunity came knocking again in March 2011 and I became the communications director for the Dogwood Initiative, an innovative Victoria-based nonprofit that helps citizens have more say over what happens to their air, land and water. I love this Tommy Douglas quote: “Remember that in a democracy, governments are your servants and not your masters.”

Outside of work, I satisfy my inner math geek by crunching numbers on any topic that presents itself; write articles about health, fitness, travel and energy for newspapers and magazines; travel as much as humanly possible and  generally lap up life on the glorious West Coast.