The Maryland-Delaware-D.C. (MDDC) Press Associatiion partnered with the Baltimore Public Relations Council to host a virtual panel discussion about how PR professionals and journalists can work smarter together. I shared my thoughts on earned media during this discussion with Alexis Taylor of The Afro News and Sameer Rao of The Daily Record, moderated by Rebecca Snyder of MDDC.

CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth recently launched The CHARM Report, a youth-led journalism initiative. Students who are part of CHARM write and edit news articles on topics ranging from the local to national levels. I, alongside education workforce reporter Kristen Griffith and audience engagement editor Stokely Baksh (both from The Baltimore Banner), answered students’ questions about working in the journalism field, developing stories from ideation to publication, and connecting with audiences.

I was invited to speak on several occasions at my college alma mater, Towson University. In addition to visiting news reporting and feature writing classes, I also spoke on a panel alongside Jay McMichael of CNN, Amy Scattergood of Baltimore Magazine, and Zach Sparks of The Severna Park Voice.

After I graduated high school from George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson, they just couldn’t get rid of me. I visited several times to speak to students in the same Literary Arts program that I had been part of (in the photo to the left, I’m standing next to one of my former teachers, Suzanne Supplee). Later, I returned to Carver to teach an 8-week introductory journalism course to sophomores for four years, and an 8-week creative nonfiction workshop to seniors for two years.

I also edited fantasy novels for two Carver students as part of their senior thesis projects. One of those young writers, Lexi Hudacek, went on to publish her novel, “Edge of Eclipse.”