Emily Soares Proctor: Writer, Editor & Coach

The daughter of a Las Vegas couple, my family and I left The Strip when I was still a tot and headed to the hot but almost coastal climes of the San Fernando Valley. There I was drenched, not surprisingly, in a love of films and of the wide flat streets of the Valley, with its then-magnificent signage, like the big hen for Chicken Delite and best-loved restaurants, such as Ho Toy’s. In mid-high school, the family moved to the lush quietude of the Rogue River Valley in southern Oregon, where I soaked in that state’s rain and river water. I returned to California to earn a film degree at San Francisco State University…and had no idea what to do next.

 But there was writing; always there was writing. From The Leper Cotillion, a brilliant but secretive ‘zine published by myself and colleague Lisa Furlong Jones, to Maximum Rock n Roll, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Net Magazine and San Francisco’s The Independent, journalism took a hold of me and wouldn’t let go.

After several years in Eastern Europe and Russia, I learned the virtue of patience and the beauty of túró cheese and vodka (not necessarily combined), while writing for English-language newspapers and helping launch Pulse, a Finnish/Russian magazine. I then brought my love of reporting, and of any good story, with her when I moved to Atlanta to work for CNN.

In the South, with its thunderstorms, lightning bugs and other oddities, like people who are nice to strangers, I at last found home. On to Turner Network Television (TNT) and back to my love of film when I landed on the network’s website, TNT.tv, as editor and writer. So began the glory days, creating content for the network’s feature titles, nascent Originals franchise and my favorites: MonsterVision and its unhosted cousin 100% Weird.

I stayed on for eight more years, seven of them as Managing Editor, through AOL merger, regime change, rebranding (We Know Drama!) and the site’s transformation from programming tool to marketing asset. I was buoyed by the era of The Pretender, the brilliant but doomed Witchblade, and the rise of TNT Originals, which allowed my love of TV and writing to join in award-winning content for titles like Into the West and The Closer.

Since then, I’ve created content for every kind of client, from Coca-Cola and The Home Depot to countless SMBs, also leading content teams at Cox Media Group and SaaS pioneer Zapier. Through it all is a commitment to elevating the message, respect for the discipline that all great writing deserves and love for creating magic that readers won’t soon forget. I’m so excited to share that passion with visitors to CopyChemist.com.