Dash of Life 001: here we go...again
a millennial's 100th attempt at a blog.
The first time I started a blog was in 2013. I was fresh out of college and just moved back to NYC to start my career. I wanted to blog about my random thoughts, style, and musings about the city that I love. I started off strong, and then life got in the way, as it usually does when you’re not a trust fund kid or come from *money*. There’s just something about writing that does it for me. It’s been the way I’ve expressed myself since I could remember. As an only child, writing in my diary was therapeutic and still is.
So here we are, 11 years later, with an attempt at another blog. The funny thing is that I first heard about Substack in January 2023 while I was on a Gullah Geechee Corridor press trip. On the trip was a writer from London who was living in Lisbon and a travel and food content creator who was living in Portland at the time. We were at a beachside lunch on the coast of Georgia, and they were talking about their Substacks, which I had never heard of before. Listening to them talk about the communities they built on the platform immediately intrigued me, and I told myself that I would start my own Substack when I got back home—a year and six months later, and we are finally here. It is never too late to start.
Since that January, a lot of things have changed. I am a new first-time mom and that has motivated me more than ever to go after everything I want in life.
Ok, so more about me and what I do:
I am a Trinidadian-American creative who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Raleigh, NC. I moved back to Brooklyn in 2013, then to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2018, and back to Brooklyn in 2020. I now reside in Atlanta—whew, that was a mouthful.
Art, travel, and personal style have been my passions, and they are reflected in what I do for work. Firstly, I am a journalist and travel writer (hence why I was on a press trip when I first heard of Substack). As a journalist, I get to travel to really cool destinations, attend events and dinners, interview tastemakers and business owners, and write about it. I’ve written for Travel + Leisure, Travel Noire, Home & Texture, and more.
I am also an entrepreneur—I own a social media agency, The JoClin Agency (JCA), where we service businesses and those with personal brands. Lastly, I am a content creator and share my personal style on my Instagram account. Through content creation, I have worked with brands such as Target, RIXO, Who What Wear, Fabletics, and more and have been featured in Marie Claire UK, Essence, and 21Ninety, to name a few. My long-term goal is to get back to my art and be a full-time artist with an art studio and all that good stuff.
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My Substack journey is all about sharing my thoughts, loves, and experiences with my community. I want my Substack to be like public journal entries that inspire and that I can refer back to years from now and see how far I’ve come. Here, you’ll find me talking about various topics like entrepreneurship, travel, personal style, and my experiences as a first-time mom.
Thank you for reading and being a part of Dash of Life.
xx,
Kelsey-Marie
Congratulations my dear!
Excited to follow along! 😃