The two most common questions people ask me these days are:
1. Do you know the gender of your baby yet?
2. Have you found anyone to replace you as editor of The Undercurrent?
To the first question, the answer is no. I’m willing to wait. It’s a fun guessing game my family gets to play as we debate names and also… I wouldn’t repaint the baby room pink or blue in either case.
To the second question I can now, effectively, answer, YES! And when I tell Bowen Islanders who lived here and read The Undercurrent roughly five years ago that Martha Perkins is going to come back and steer the ship, the response is highly enthusiastic.
Martha first joined The Undercurrent in November 2009 after a 25-year stint as the editor of the local papers in Haliburton, Ontario. After 14 much-loved months at The Undercurrent, she was asked to be the editor of The North Shore Outlook and, then, The Westender in Vancouver. Most recently, she’s launched Glacier Media’s crowdfunding initiative, FundAid.
Martha has maintained her connection with Bowen Island — she and her husband have a sailboat moored in the USSC Marina.
I, for one, am happy to be able to hand the paper over — not just to a pro, but to someone who already knows the community. I’m also excited to see what new directions she’ll take the paper in.
Change is good.
Martha is also going to be helping me out until I wrap up at the end of July, so you’ll see her name grace the pages of this paper. You’ll see her out on the street taking pictures. If you pop by the office, you might just end up chatting with her instead of me.
If you know her already say hello, and if not, I know you’ll introduce yourself.
Welcome back to Bowen, Martha!
