Ashley Conner

At 17 I was asked why I wanted to go into Journalism and I (mistakenly) said because I liked working with people.

The Dean of the College of Journalism said, "You should be a bus driver."

What I didn’t know then was that I would fall in love with writing and would acquire a knack for finding and writing good news stories. AND I liked working with people.

I have spent the last 15 years working in Public Relations. I love writing more than ever and liking people is absolutely essential in this line of work.

I was in an earthquake in Nepal in 2015 that shaped my views on post-disaster news reporting. In 2018 when Hurricane Michael destroyed Panama City, where I live, I went to work to tell the survivor stories which are now available in my first book, Memoirs of Michael: The Hurricane Project.