I haven’t posted in a while. Life in 2013 has been a bit of a whirlwind. Mama Jude had another of her quarterly MRIs to monitor her rare brain cancer and it showed no new growth! What a relief as we continue to face the daily battles that are part of living with brain cancer.

There’s been surprise movement on my career front! Here’s the story: Unsure of what we wanted for lunch after Mama Jude’s doctor appointment, we headed to the (overcrowded) shopping mall food court just before the new year where we ended up sharing a table with a nice guy and his mother. He turned out to be a local news producer looking for a writer! I interviewed right away (my interviewer was a fellow USC alum – yay!) and I was grateful for my CareerHMO career prep work during my long, enjoyable interview. (I admit I was also grateful for those dreaded, weekly AP Style Book tests from journalism school since a style test was part of my interview.) I accepted a freelance newswriting/content editing position with this TV station I’ve long admired (clue: our family = huge Scott Budman fans). Unfortunately, the flu hit the newsroom hard, but I am eager to begin training when they recover.

I’m thrilled for this new opportunity because I love news writing — it’s concise and strives to be unbiased. Frankly, it’s probably the most straight-forward type of communication. ‘Don’t bury the lead!’ j-school professors chanted regularly.

I find it considerably more difficult to blog and share my own opinions and stories. Which isn’t to say that I’m going to stop; just that I am constantly examining boundaries in this type of writing. In any case, I’ve got a bunch more posts planned… subscribe so you won’t miss any, please!

I’ve also been working on a complete redesign of my professional Website, http://www.gabrianamarks.com. The current site is still up; I’ve just encountered some technical difficulties delaying the debut of the new site. Please bear with me as I attempt to recover lost files. I promise to unveil the new and improved site soon.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this new slideshow gallery from our special trip to Venice. Plus, a Lil’ Nosy Parker gallery too. And please follow/share/subscribe to Nosy Parker Blog!!!