Andrea Wren: Journalist

And the good news is...I have a Guardian column!

It's been a while since I've updated my journalist website, but I'm happy to do so with the good news that I have been commissioned a column in the Guardian, which will last for 6 months.

The cover feature to launch and introduce the column will be published in the Saturday Guardian Work section on the 3rd September, then two weeks following my column 'proper' launches, on September 17th.

Though I am not going to reveal the nature of the column (you'll have to wait and see!), it's all very exciting stuff, and I'm thrilled to have this opportunity. There will be a lot of work ahead for me, but it's work that I just can't wait to get stuck into.

So watch this space - and look out for the cover feature in Saturday Guardian Work section on September 3rd 2011. I'm positive it will be something a lot of people will also be very excited about.

My copywriting work in 2011 Visit Llandudno brochure

Visit Llandudno commissioned me to do a travel copywriting job last year for the 2011 brochure, where I stayed overnight and did all the great touristy things that the town offers. It brought back childhood memories, and was a really lovely job to be doing!

It was nice to get a copy of the brochure in the post a couple of weeks ago and see the feature I'd written for them. If you'd like to have a look, my feature is Weekend in Llandudno on page 4.

Bring on more jobs like this - it was an absolute pleasure.

Google searching: Tip of the day on Journalism.co.uk

I like the 'tip of the day' which comes through on my regular email updates from www.journalism.co.uk. The most recent tip is very useful for journalists who do a lot of their research on the web.

Slick searching: A Google search doesn't trawl the EXISTING web. Instead, Google trawls its cache of pages which can be weeks old. Journalists can use the cache to access pulled pages. If the main link doesn't work - click on the 'cached' version. Tipster: Colin Meek

Now for something different...

My latest feature in easyJet Inflight magazine is all about Paganism - and it was great fun to write! It was a very new subject for me, and I was wondering what I'd would discover when writing the piece up. I think this feature for me just highlighted how much I really enjoy the opportunities in freelance writing to approach an entirely new subject and see it as a learning experience.

Not all new subjects I write about I have so much enthusiasm for, I have to admit. But I'm always interested in anything that is focused on other people's philosophies or attitudes to life (as opposed to writing about the workings of the steam engine, which thankfully I've never had to do).

Fussy eater or food phobic?

This feature on fussy eaters and food phobics that I recently had published on iVillage.co.uk was a good one to write, especially as I'm one of the least fussy eaters in the world! Don't get me wrong, I dislike too much junk food and I do like my food to be real and nutritious, so I'm only 'fussy' in terms of having a preference for good quality food, but other than that, I'll eat whatever you put in front of me!

So, speaking to people who had aversions to many of the foods I love was interesting, and speaking to the experts involved as to why these types of faddiness or phobias occur was eye-opening as well.

This feature on fussy eaters and food phobics that I recently had published on iVillage.co.uk was a good one to write, especially as I'm one of the least fussy eaters in the world! Don't get me wrong, I dislike too much junk food and I do like my food to be real and nutritious, so I'm only 'fussy' in terms of having a preference for good quality food, but other than that, I'll eat whatever you put in front of me!

So, speaking to people who had aversions to many of the foods I love was interesting, and speaking to the experts involved as to why these types of faddiness or phobias occur was eye-opening as well.

Live event blogging is where my work stretches to...

The freelance nature of my work can take me wide and far, and I've really enjoyed an unusual commission that I've just completed.

For the last two days I've been 'live event blogging' at the English Heritage Your Place or Mine? conference; the aim being to produce an almost real-time recorded sequence of the programme in the form of a blog, to enable those who were following the conference from afar to keep up to date with it.

RSS - it's really simple, but are you onto it?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which means very easily, we can have the latest news, from whatever area we work in, delivered to us in headline form on a daily basis. It means we can pick out what we'd like to take notice of and miss out the rest.

Services such as Bloglines (the one that I use) allow you to subscribe to 'news feeds' from online distributors so you can see the content, without having to visit the site - whether that is the MediaGuardian website or the blog of a friend.

So how come there are still many people working in the media who haven't caught onto RSS yet?

Specialist areas: Business, employment, communication issues

Business and Employment Issues

If you've checked out other parts of this site, you might think this topic seems completely alien to the other areas I work in, yet because my degree was in Applied Human Communication and I studied HR as well as organisational communication, I have a good amount of knowledge of ‘people issues’ and I enjoy writing about them.

Specialist areas: Consumer and lifestyle

Health, Diet, Nutrition (and Lifestyle)

I've done lots of work in this field having written on anything from MRSA on hospital wards (REAL magazine) to the commercialisation of donor breast milk in the US (The Times T2).

Some of the other titles I've written for past or present in this area include such Weight Watchers, Boost!, Take a Break, REAL magazine, Natural Health & Beauty, handbag.com, and many others - mainly because of a deep personal interest in health and nutrition. As well, due to my previous work with young people (see below), I do have expertise in health issues.

Unleash your writing power - if you dare

Is the world ready for me unleashed? I think not. But you can blame Judi Goodwin for the ensuing chaos that might occur.

Last weekend, in a sleepy North Yorkshire village, I was lucky enough to have participated in her course, Unleash Your Writing Power. I hadn’t been quite sure what to expect, as I’d assumed my writing power had all been unleashed when I became a journalist – but I was wrong.

I discovered that even people who have been in the game a while can learn so much more to improve their style and way of working.