The times they are a ‘changin’ (Thanks, Bob!).
A few months back, in light of the demise of the Playhouse, I wrote a pretty despondent blog post. Truthfully, this was something that had been going through my mind for a while. But the events of the last few months have kinda pushed me off the cliff.
It’s weird to think about not doing publicity any more. I still get tons of people looking to hire me. And it makes me sad, because I know that the service I offer is immensely important and valuable. I’m very passionate about helping small arts organizations get bums in seats. But, for various reasons (which I’m not really going to go into, because it will likely get me in a heap ‘o’ trouble), I’ve basically decided to retire from the publicity racket.
In addition, my teaching career is taking off in a big way. I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to follow opportunities as they present themselves, and teaching seems to be the latest “yes” course of my life. I’ve now been teaching at Emily Carr for two years, and a year and a half at BCIT. My courses are pretty popular, and I get consistently high feedback from my students.
So, in addition to teaching at both ECUAD and at BCIT in the fall, I’ll be doing a couple of new things. First, my BCIT Social Media Marketing for Small Business course is going online. That means that those of you who live outside of the Lower Mainland can now take this class. Cool, right? I’ve also been asked by BCIT to develop a 15-hour course in using social media for Not-for-Profit and Charity Organizations. It will be a face-to-face class, taking place over a three-day weekend. I’ll be developing it this summer, to run in the fall.
My workshop schedule is also booking up. An immensely popular workshop that Lili and I did last fall for the Eastside Culture Crawl is happening again, as is a well-attended one I did at The Burnaby Art Gallery.
Yep, I’m a busy gal, but it’s exciting stuff, so bring it on!
For more information, to register, or keep up-to-date on my latest workshop availability, keep checking in on my Current Projects page.
While I am sure your potential publicity clients will be sorry to learn about your early-early-early retirement, I think your post is wonderfully positive. I say so because it’s so positive, it’s about good things happening to you, and is a very onward and upward reaching to the future point of view. Carry on and congratulations on all your teaching success!
Good for you Rebecca! It’s sad but like you said, new avenues have opened up for you. You’re an excellent presenter so it all kind of makes sense.
I’ll ditto Harriet’s excellent presenter comment, and wish you well on your new-ish direction. Re-invention is scary but rejuvenating. Good luck.
Thanks for the encouragement, guys!