Photo by Lucy Le Lièvre
I’m a BC-based journalist, editor, and multimedia producer with an eye on coastal culture, Indigenous sovereignty, and the climate crisis as well as creative change makers and their big ideas. Through long-form writing and audiovisual storytelling, I aim to produce nuanced narratives that promote empathy, speak for the Earth, seek solutions, and empower people to live well.
I’ve convoyed with Colorado’s early cannabis entrepreneurs; previewed robots trying to save the Great Barrier Reef; witnessed two big milestones in the Haida Nation’s struggle for self-determination (a 2021 reconciliation framework and the subsequent Haida Title Lands Agreement in 2024); and investigated the renewed fight to protect British Columbia’s ancient temperate rainforests. That included publishing the first in-depth feature on the Fairy Creek Blockade—which, in the summer of 2021, exploded into the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.
Along the way, I’ve interviewed everyone from formerly incarcerated Americans to novelist and social critic Jonathan Franzen and profiled a motley crew of artists, entrepreneurs, and adventurers (like the intrepid Vancouver ocean dippers featured in this Webster Award-winning multimedia feature). Oh, and there was that one time I ran into two music heroes at a Dublin pub and came home with this story.
My writing has been published in dozens of print and online outlets, including: AFAR, Australian Gourmet Traveller, BBC Capital, CBC, Hakai, Hemispheres, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Reader’s Digest Canada, San Francisco, Sierra, Sunset, Surfing World, The Guardian, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Tyee. I’ve also worked as an editor for magazines, podcasts, academic journal articles, and book publishers.
I spent a year as an associate producer at What On Earth, the only dedicated climate change radio show and podcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where I spearheaded episodes about the dangerous distraction of carbon offsets, the “critical minerals” needed for electric vehicles, the climate benefits of old-growth forests, and the growing threat of atmospheric rivers to the west coast of North America.
In May 2022, I began a journalism fellowship at Hakai Magazine focused on a long-form narrative feature about those same atmospheric rivers. “A River Runs Above Us” was published in July 2023 and earned the gold National Magazine Award in Long-Form Feature Writing as well as the gold Digital Publishing Award for Best Topical Reporting: Climate Change. That fellowship turned into a full-time editing job, which now encompasses everything from proofreading articles to managing the editorial calendar to helping push immersive stories—like the award-winning feature “The Demon River” by J.B. MacKinnon—to their multimedia potential.
Get in touch at hello(at)serenarenner(dot)com, and let’s create inspiring stories together.