Writing

Eight years experience as a writer in the genres of travel, comedy and food & drink.

Scouts Ultimate Activity Guide

My first published book was a non-fiction activity guide for kids made in collaboration with Australian Geographic (who I have written articles for) and Scouts South Australia. Created to get kids active and outside, Scouts Ultimate Activity Guide contains over 200 pages of fun games, crafts, facts and experiments for kids aged seven to twelve.

I was responsible for researching and writing all the copy in the book. This included conducting interviews, adapting source material, working with child safety guidelines and meeting agreed upon deadlines.

The Betoota Advocate

Longest running freelance contributor of Australia’s number one comedy website and most trusted source of satirical news, The Betoota Advocate. For seven and a half years I wrote under the penname Louis Burke and had just shy of 2000 articles published.

Writing entirely remotely, my weekly duties involved coming up with a minimum 40 satirical headlines based on current news and cultural observations. After editor approval, I would turn five to ten of those headlines into satirical articles, often writing them all in one day.

AWOL

Previously, I was lead travel writer at a publication for young (and young at heart) travellers of the world.

Pieces included personal accounts of conquering my fear of the ocean by travelling, 48 hour food & culture guides, think pieces on mindful travel, relevant news stories, quirky trip ideas and interviews with interesting people.

Gained experience researching/pitching article ideas, attending famils, working with PR agencies and Wordpress.

The Crafty Pint

Since 2021, I have been a contributor to The Crafty Pint, Australia’s number one craft beer publication. As The Crafty Pint is based in Melbourne, my responsibilities include keeping them up to date on the Sydney scene and tasting beers while they are fresh (yes, I should have studied harder at school).

Since joining Crafty Pint I have written several area guides (Crafty Crawls), covered environmentally minded brewing practices, interviewed interesting brewers, celebrated weird beers (pictured) and had my own advice column.

Junkee/Punkee

In-house and as a freelancer, I did pop-culture reporting with a comedic undertone for Junkee Media, discussing Nathan Fielder, the ‘keep the rabbits out’ kid and a House of the Dragon hot take/prediction that almost actually happened.

Less news focused, I wrote a few personal, comedic pieces for Punkee including a ranking of Bakers Delight snacks, the trashiest reality TV show I’ve ever subjected my eyes to and the time I ate a restaurant’s ‘secret pasta’ every week for a month to find out the disappointing truth.

Additionally, I wrote sponsored articles for both publications.