Talk: Hold the front page
Mary studied English at the University of Southampton before beginning her career in journalism on a national women’s magazine renowned for its quirkiness and bad puns. Following a couple of years in California, Mary joined a farming magazine and travelled thousands of miles around the UK. After settling in Cumbria with her family, she worked as the Penrith reporter for The Cumberland News and News & Star before moving to the Carlisle office to write and edit features. Mary’s career came full circle when she became a commissioning editor on Cumbria Life magazine, where she also wrote features and was ultimately deputy editor and freelance arts editor.
Mary’s career spanned the glory days of print journalism – profitable publications, company cars, very long lunches – and its slow and painful decline as the digital age gained ascendancy. Illustrated with photography from the publications she has worked on, Mary’s talk will follow her somewhat eccentric career progression through roles which were often challenging but always interesting because of the people she was privileged to meet and the variety of stories she worked on. Mary will hope to convey the excitement of working to tight deadlines covering everything from floods to film premières and the fun of ‘brand extensions’ such as readers’ holidays, awards and festivals.
