From starting out as Prima magazine’s Editorial Assistant way back in the 90s to most recently being appointed as Assistant Editor (Features Director) of Metro.co.uk, I’ve notched up over 25 years experience working on busy award-winning features teams.
During that time I’ve travelled to Iraq to report about women on the frontline, helped raise over £1m for the charity CoppaFeel!, trained to be a psychic detective and dominatrix (not at the same time), covered Stacey Solomon’s interview with Boris Johnson about global female rights, launched an epic Mental Health Awareness Week iniative and have proven my tenacity a hundred times over as a brilliant case study finder… to name but a few things. I’m also exceptionally organised, work well under pressure and can edit and generate ideas, just as brilliantly as I can write and research them.
From 2014-2019, I was at the helm of the features desk on Fabulous magazine – having been with the publication since it’s launch in 2008 – editing, commissioning, idea-generating and writing all things real life, as well as contributing to our health, travel and lifestyle pages, both in print and online.
Ready for a new challenge, I went freelance in the summer of 2019 and ended up writing a 14-page profile piece about the Saracens Women rugby team for Rugby Journal and turning my hand to finding and recruiting dozens of case studies for features and co-branded pieces, for the likes of Good Housekeeping and Women’s Health, as well as finding participants for an M&S social media campaign.
In January 2020 I joined the Metro.co.uk team as Communities Editor, looking after all things first person and opinion. Just six months later, I became Features Director, overseeing features content across the site and launching the brilliant ongoing long-read series, In Focus.
Now I work on top table as Assistant Editor, while continuing to oversee the features content across the site and on the Metro newspaper, too.
I’ve headed up several across-site projects at Metro.co.uk, including the charity fundraising Lifeline campaign – which has raised over £100k for The Hygiene Bank and PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide – and an our epic Mental Health Awareness Week Takeover in May 2021, followed by our Pride Takeover in June 2022, both of which saw many well-known names guest edit the site for a week. And I’ve still got plenty more ambitious plans to come…
For more information about my experience you can visit my portfolio to see a handful of examples of my work or click on my CV for further details.
On a more personal note – I love all things Prince, set myself a new ridiculous physical challenge every year and adore my (sometimes feral) children and husband (not so feral).
- You can email me at claiefreelance@gmail.com and find me tweeting as @claiester
Claie Wilson 