Hi there. That’s me on the left (eyes open!) travelling in western Sichuan, China.

Alison Bate is an experienced journalist and editor, spending nine years on staff at Canada’s The Vancouver Sun as assistant design editor, acting design editor and foreign wire editor. On the new media side, she co-founded and ran a 100-page nonprofit website for two years.

She edited two maritime magazines in Vancouver and Seattle and has written numerous columns and features for international business magazines and online publications in the U.S., Japan, and the U.K.

Her freelance work has appeared on CBC Radio and in The Globe and Mail, Reader’s Digest Canada, Canadian Geographic, BCBusiness magazine, Marine Digest, The Journal of Commerce, Maritime Magazine, and numerous international business publications, both online and print.

In the last six years, she’s been indulging her passion for travelling and working with new immigrants, as a CELTA-certified English as a Second Language teacher. She has taught overseas in Urumqi, northwest China; in Khartoum, Sudan; and in her home town, Vancouver. She is currently working in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Bate trained as a journalist in England, where she worked as reporter, chief reporter, education correspondent and copy editor on newspapers, including the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. She also freelanced on the nationals for 18 months, including the Daily Express, The Observer and Today.

In the community, she also runs the festival blog for the Write on Bowen festival on Bowen Island.