Experience and Education
For over six years, I’ve worked as a UX writer and copywriter, with content strategy and email marketing experience. When I create content and flows, I want users to forget they’re interacting with a digital user interface. I want the experience to be seamless, as if they’re connecting with a knowledgeable and friendly person. Before I write a word or optimize flow, I ask myself:
Who is the user and what motivates them?
What is the user trying to accomplish and how can I help them?
What questions or concerns will the user have and how can I address them?
How can I gain the user’s trust and create a positive experience?
How can I share important info and reassure the user without overwhelming them?
How can I make this experience accessible?
I also create content for websites, advertisements, social media, and blogs. I have worked collaboratively with companies to reposition them in their field. Through research, interviews, storyboards, and the creation of marketing decks, I align the brand voice with the company’s desired future direction.
I have a Master of Arts degree from New York University in Fashion History and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Empire State College in Social History, with a minor in Creative Writing. My background as a historian allows me to see the world through an analytical lens, and make connections to a person, place, or thing through narrative.
Before I became a writer, I worked as a retail manager for a tea shop, a fashion archivist, and a curator. My background in customer service sharpened my interpersonal and problem-solving skills. I’m adept at listening to people and relating to them. When I work with clients or colleagues, I tune into their personalities and offer solutions to problems in a tailor-made tone. I prefer to lace humor into most of my interactions, but I always adhere to Brand Voice and Style Guides, first and foremost.
My experience as an archivist and a curator allowed me to hone my organizational and narrative skills. I studied and arranged material objects in a way that told a story, transcending the written word, and connecting people across the distance of time and space.
About Me: The origin story
I love writing, but it got me into a heap of trouble.
As a child, I collected words like a logophile magpie. I would borrow my mom’s subscription magazines and retreat with a pair of scissors to my bedroom. Hiding under my bed, I feverishly toiled, cutting snippets of text from the semi-gloss pages. I stored each word in a spent tissue box that I decorated a la découpage-style.
Incidentally, I hid in the same spot under my bed with the same pair of scissors to give myself asymmetrical bangs. Even at age six, I understood that an avant-garde hair-do would set me apart as a creative. If only my parents shared this understanding. It wasn’t long before my parents locked the scissors away and I had to find another way to connect with words.
If I couldn’t collect words, I would worship them. I would carve their beautiful forms into furniture, walls, and toys. I would pay homage to their meaning and venerate before their hallowed forms. Every surface was a tabernacle for text— every surface except for the front door to my childhood home. I can’t remember what word I carved into the door, but I do remember that I was banished to my room for a loooong time after I created that particular word shrine. I tried to reason with my parents, but they weren’t interested in a theological debate. I was grounded.
With my freedom to worship words stripped away, I had no choice but to connect with words that were spoken. If I liked the sound of a word, I would write it down on paper and weave it into a story. I especially liked words that were charged with emotion and elicited a big response from people.
One evening, while I was completing a written class assignment, I heard a word on the 5 o’clock news that sent people reeling. This word uttered by a reporter on the scene drew a sensational response from the crowd. From the context of the interview, I could tell it was a shocking word— perfect for my tale about a misunderstood janitor mouse who was trapped by a teacher. This mouse lived in the walls of a school by day and cleaned the classrooms by night. (Side note: I was really into faerie tales at this time. I observed 61% of faerie tales are about protagonists toiling with cleaning duties, so I adapted this tried-and-true formula into my writing.)
Anyhow, back to the mouse tale. For the climax of my story, I wanted to elicit intense emotion. I pictured the 5 o’clock news report in my mind and recalled the look of shock on people’s faces. I seized this imagery. I wove it into my writing. In my story, the teacher catches the hapless mop-toting mouse between her fingertips and gives it a shake. The mouse cries out, “R*pe!”
I knew the inclusion of this word in my story would get the attention of my first-grade teacher. And attention that word did get! My teacher circled the word several times in red ink and noted, “We do not use this word in school. Please talk to your parents about the use of this word.” Well, between the critical feedback from my teacher and the negative reaction of my parents, I decided that words were more powerful than I originally suspected and needed to be delivered with care.
My rocky relationship with language led me to retire from my dream of becoming a writer. But, there was a part of me that remained hopeful. At age seven, I took home a school assignment titled, “What I want to be when I grow up.” I was supposed to draw a picture of my future self. This seemed like a dangerous exercise. The person I was seemed to get in trouble, so I reasoned I should be someone I was not.
On the school bus, my classmates talked about who they wanted to be when they grew up— princesses, astronauts, doctors, parents, marine biologists. Reverting back to my days as a word thief, I stole Jamie M’s dream title: ballerina. When I got home, I started to draw myself in a gauzy tulle tutu on a stage before an adoring crowd. Then I remembered that I couldn’t dance and I hated uncomfortable shoes. And I definitely did not like crowds— adoring or otherwise.
I looked down at my two-dimensional self on paper and frowned. I wasn’t a damned prima donna. I was the weird kid who liked to amuse people with stories about magical turnips and talking cats. I saved salamanders on the outskirts of the school playground and formed a salamander conservation organization with Gillian C. I gave myself the nom de plume of Beauty Butterfly because I knew alliteration was cool.
I flipped my mechanical pencil upside down and rubbed out the offensive image. At this point, my “What I want to be when I grow up” assignment looked like trash. The paper was smudged, worn, scratched, and spotted. My canvas wasn’t blank, but neither was I. Without hesitation, I drew myself on a gently sloping hilltop overlooking an ocean. I wore a broad-brimmed hat and a smile on my face. In one hand, I clutched a pen and in the other, I held a piece of paper with words scribbled on it. I was a writer. Not today, not tomorrow, but perhaps the day after.
For years, I avoided becoming a writer. My relationship with longhand was short. Revealing myself in print had been painful in the past. Why not pursue a living in something I didn’t care about as much? Then words couldn’t hurt me. I became a manager, a historian, an archivist, and an administrator. While I never felt threatened by these pursuits, I also did not feel enthusiastic.
“I’m just not happy with my career,” I admitted to a friend one day. “I feel bored. Listless. Dull.”
“Well,” my friend reflected, “What do you want to be…you know…when you grow up?” She winked.
An image flashed across my temporal lobe. It was me in a hat on a mountaintop. The pencil lines that formed my body were bold and intentional. The illustrated paper and pen in my hand were rendered in detail. I squinted to read what I had scribbled on the paper. Yes, I could just make it out the words…
A smile cleaved my lips in two and I answered what was true, “Laura Gust. Writer.”
About Me: The dramatic version
I’m a storyteller. But, to illustrate this, here’s the prologue.
As a child, I observed that words were dynamic forms with the ability to move, create, connect and inspire. I wanted to wield their power, but they morphed through context and time. I didn’t know where to begin. So, I devised a plan to master them.
First, I captured the right words. I clipped text from old magazines– words such as “azure,” “peony",” and “reprehensible” – and saved them in a wooden box. Next, I examined them. I reached into my box, drew a word, and scribble it into my marble notebook for inspection. Finally, I utilized them. I strung words together to create meaning and read them aloud. Sentences poured from my lips like incantations. I could feel their power growing. There was static in the air. But, here is the trick with words. They are mesmerizing. Unintentionally, I fell under their spell, and, to this day, I am bound to them. I wanted to master words, but I’m afraid I am now their servant.
