Freelancer of the fortnight: Rebecca Gardner, UK

Click here to view Rebecca's full freelance profile on Journalism.co.uk.

Why did you choose to become a freelancer?
Freelancing was the ideal way of getting into writing as a second career. I worked in marketing and communications for 10 years, then while taking time off when my children were young, we moved to Seattle on secondment. After living in a city of bookaholics, with so many bookstores, writing conferences and the best library system in the world, I wanted to start writing professionally.
 
If you trained, where? If not, how did you become a freelancer?
In 2006, I took a postgraduate course in non-fiction at the University of Washington – a mix of skills such as interviewing, combined with analysing writing styles and content. Although just for one evening a week, many students had pieces published before the year was out – including me.
 
Do you specialise in any particular field and what areas do you write about?
So far I've written on travel, tourism, heritage, family life and children's activities. I write UK travel articles regularly for British Heritage, an American magazine. On the commercial and copywriting side, I have written about showers, paint and varnish, tax seminars, coffee shops, central heating boilers and wine tasting as well as many other topics.
 
Which publications have you been published in?
The Guardian, British Heritage, Small World, Seattle's Child, Northwest Baby and Child (US), Kirkland News, Families Gloucestershire, The Oracle and the Cheltenham Directory.
 
Which articles, in which publication, are you the most proud of?
My travel feature on the Orcas Islands, published in the Guardian, as my first major travel feature. Also my first ever article – earning $20 in a Seattle parenting magazine.
 
What are the best and worst aspects of freelancing?
I love interviewing. I've interviewed Lady Godiva MBE, the owner of a chocolate factory, while eating countless samples, and a steam train driver while riding on the footplate. The irregularity of work is frustrating – building up contacts to get regular work is vital.
 
Do you have any interesting anecdotes in relation to your experience as a freelancer?
After interviewing a Brownie pack on a sleepover at a zoo, the organiser escorted me out, then returned to the Brownies locking up behind him. I was then in an open-air car park at midnight with the exit barrier stuck in the down position. The zoo, an hour outside Seattle, faced a large forested area; I was more worried about the local bears than the zoo's inhabitants. With an insistent car horn I eventually woke a sleepy security guard without waking the Siberian tigers.

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