Priyanka Mohan

We have gone international baby! Having navigated the time difference, I managed to get hold of Digital Content Creator Priyanka Mohan. Identifying as a Third Culture Kid, Priyanka balances the influences of three cultures in her life, whist living in the Unites States of America. With an Indian background, but being born and raised in Dubai and then moving to the USA when she was 17, the three cultures have all played in a part in influencing her content today.

Sitting in her plant saturated living room, Priyanka delved into telling me about her journey into content creation. Her transition from Dubai to becoming a student at Virginia Tech, Washington DC is where Priyanka has resided for most of her USA life (just over 10 years). With a break up being the catalyst for a change in Priyanka’s life, she applied for jobs which was the start of her chapter in Minnesota.

“I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know anything about Minnesota, I just put everything in my car and I drove”

With Minnesota being a completely different welcoming experience to any other state she had lived in before, Priyanka identified that her formative years were shaped by the diversity that came with her international moves. It was during this time that she became used to navigating the day to day life alone. Going to work and then coming home became template for her life for a while, and getting used to the different social construct in Minnesota was a challenge.

“I did try looking for that emotional and social connection”

Getting to a point where she was beginning to realise that she may not be integrated as she might’ve been living in the East Coast, she was beginning to think about leaving. It was at this point that she was told about a local influencer event from her regular coffee shop from which she began to mingle with people who wanted to meet other people.

During lockdown Priyanka really honed in on how she wanted to now present her content. Motivated by Social Justice and Positivity, she put her photography skills to work. Shaping her content to inspire people and taking the most beautiful images, she is constantly developing her craft.

“It’s been quite challenging”

Being the photographer and the subject of her own images presents itself as a challenge. Aligning her images now with her study of Fine Art and taking inspiration from colour and Pop Art, it is apparent that Priyanka is experimenting with cementing her own colourful style on her feed with her content. As her journey into colourful content creation grows so does her following and it with eagerness that I personally look forward to the creativity that comes paired with her photographs.

Meera Sharma

Meera Sharma is a myriad of talents, from being a radio presenter to writing and self-publishing The Book of Sass, she has conquered an array of creative projects which she shared with me. Speaking from the comfort of our bedrooms, Meera came laced in self-care and put my moisturising routine to shame as she was saturated in skin and hair oils. Skin was positively glowing.

Meera Sharma was born and raised in Lancashire, and made note that there were not many Asian families in that area at the time. With her childhood, she felt like grew up with a good mix of South Asian Culture and British Culture and balancing these two cultures is often reflected in her creative endeavours today.

Always having the ambition and drive to pursue something different, is what led Meera to decide to study Fashion Design at the University of Westminster and turn down her Law School offer. This off the cuff and ballsy move, was motivated by rebellion of the status quo. Describing the experience as very “Devil Wears Prada” the “bolshy Northerner” was often contrasting to what her tutors expected of her, however, led to her creating a collection that attracted a lot of press. Based on the premise of superheroes and having two identities, Meera created her first collection based around this.  

“I’m all about female empowerment…people have these preconceived ideas and I feel like for Asian women especially… people have this idea that we’re very timid and restricted and I just think not everyone is like that”

Gaining traction from her collection resulted in her being signed to a PR agent and mingling in the media world. During this time, Meera started delving more into the Bollywood Showbiz side of things when she began interviewing stars like Amitabh Bachan and writing fashion reviews on Bollywood stars for Bollyspice. This resulted in her presenting film reviews at the BBC Asian Network for the Raj and Pablo show which allowed her to be able to attend events where these stars would be. Indulging in this media saturation of her career made her realise that the lifestyle in fashion wasn’t the life she wanted to live. Choosing to then pursue a more media-based career, Meera went to work within media sales. Now in the working world, she then got the opportunity to go on Take Me Out.

 Yes. Take. Me. Out.

Going in with the same confidence as she did within fashion, Meera styled herself and was on a mission to represent her community in a different way. From showing a different insight into the Asian community, to gaining traction from the show (and meeting Paddy obviously) Meera met her now co-host Jaya.

 Jaya saw Meera on Take Me Out and through mutual friends, reached out and they both realised the way they wanted to represent their communities aligned. They likied and they lightied (that was awful please forgive me).

After liaising with each other they both had the goal of empowering women and pitched their radio show, Up Your Game, to Rukus Avenue Radio and got running.

“You don’t really see any shows where two Asian women come together like that in the UK”

Speaking about dating and relationships and breaking stereotypes, Meera and Jaya have spoke to some brilliant guests, including Natasha Sandhu and Naz from Love Island.

Alongside her growing radio show, Meera is constantly improving her creative outlet and different ways to motivate and empower women. This is where The Little Book of Sass came in. This book was a collection of sassy quotes and was created by Meera as a tool of empowerment for people and to keep them going. Self-Publishing on Amazon, just goes to demonstrate how headstrong this creative is and I look forward to seeing how she is going to develop even further!

Jenni Savin

From investigating cultural trends to real-life hard-hitting stories, Jennifer Savin is a pivotal member of the Cosmopolitan Features team and has got herself in some sticky situations in her investigative pursuits. In our conversation, Jenni indulged me in her writing journey and how she got to work on one of the most recognised publications in the magazine world.

From the comfort of our homes, Jenni was rocking her signature Mac red lippy and we began by chatting about Jenni’s desire, pre-covid- to slow down and how this pandemic (as extreme as it sounds) was the way to accommodate that. Not taking away from people’s negative experiences of lockdown, this period allowed Jenni to take a step back from the hustle and bustle.

As the daughter of a military man, Jenni always moved around military base accommodation and settled for the majority of her life in Essex. Going on to study English Literature and Media at University of Brighton, Jenni worked part time jobs during this time and then following graduation (2013) moved to France for a kitchen role working for the Sultan of Oman – Jenni just decided to causally drop this into conversation.

It was during this time that Jenni kept up her blogging to ensure that she kept on writing, and had dabbled in writing for online platforms to make sure she was continually writing. Whilst in France a friend from her part time jobs, Isabella Silvers (who is now a writer across Hearst) encouraged Jenni to apply for a Features Intern for Cosmopolitan magazine – this was a full time and yearlong opportunity at Cosmo.

“I spent every night after work for a week working intensely on my cover letter”

Beginning the long application process, Jenni got to work and put in the hours on her cover letter, critique of the issue and 5 ideas for the publication. This application process became the catalyst for her to move back to the UK, where she realised if she wanted to be taken seriously for a role in journalism, she had to be available. So back to the UK she came and began working in a pub as an evening job. With her head in the game to pursue her writing career, Jenni was attending networking events, writing and applying for all the opportunities she could.

Two months after the initial application stage, Jenni heard back from Cosmo and was invited to create a mock up for the magazine as the next task. It was not easy. Whilst she was waiting to hear back from Cosmo, Jenni had managed to get herself work experience at Closer Magazine, as a result from the networking events so had that under her belt too.

After submitting the next task Cosmo reached out to Jenni with an opportunity to cover the current features intern.

“I didn’t realise they were kind of testing me to see if I’d be right for the role”

After four months since the initial submission, Jenni finally bagged herself the internship at the magazine and began her journey into feature writing. Although the application is much more streamlined now, it wasn’t all plain sailing for Jenni at the time. Going through a period of severe anxiety and a really tough time. Following her recovery, her passion for mental health lead to her writing pieces for Women’s Health and as her writing portfolio expanded so did her opportunities.

“I was so fixated, it was like I was stuck in a cycle of googling things, I was convinced I had a brain tumour or cancer, I just wasn’t functioning”

Following the change of editor, halfway through her internship, Jenni was offered a full-time position on the Features Team and began working writing her book The Wrong Move which has now been published. Paired with her experiences of renting in London, Jenni crafted a thriller which has now led on to her working on her second book at her own pace. I for one loved hearing about Jenni’s writing journey and am looking forward to see what the future is going to bring for her.

Lara Burwell

After a slight technical hitch, our wi-fi decided to cooperate and Lara Burwell honoured me with the conversation of her journey and how she began blogging and writing. Although Lara’s writing has been a positive outcome, it’s regrettable that the reason for her to start doing so was quite the opposite.

Now 14 chapters in to her blog, Lara began her blogging and writing journey after she was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer over a year ago. From diagnosis to treatment Lara used her blog as an outlet and a platform to articulate her experiences for people to read and not fee alone.

“I wanted a way to put it into something I could digest myself”

As a mother of one, Lara wanted her cancer journey and blog to be a way for her son to read about her experiences and what the family went through. Her chapter structure was motivated by Lara not wanting to miss any details about her journey and make sure her son was aware in the future.

Lara’s life before her cancer diagnosis, was a stark contrast to her life now. Constantly wanting to climb the career ladder in the nurseries she used to work in, Lara was very ambitious and was looking to start trying for her second child.

“We were living in blissful ignorance”

Lara described her situation before her diagnosis as building towards her “perfect life” and feels a resentment sometimes. Having to revaluate her outlook on situations she would’ve perhaps taken for granted. The number of hours she was able to put into her job before was a considerable amount more than it is now. Seeing life “pass her by” and changes happening all around her saw a change in her mental health and the feeling of stagnation whilst wating for her results.

“It’s gone so fast and so slowly at the same time”

Speaking about how the next set of test results could mean further treatment or the start of remission and the normalcy of what her life was before made me cement how monumental each chapter of Lara’s treatment has been. From having cameras put down her throat to dealing with numerous surgeries, Lara uses her blogging outlet as a way to process her journey. As her story continues so do the chapters of her story and blog.

Ali Woods

Having indulged in the comedy of Ali Woods at the Top-Secret Comedy Club in London, I had to see what else this young comedian had in store. Getting rid of my lockdown blues with his sketches on Instagram, I reached out to this born and raised Londoner for chat about his comedy journey.

Educated in North London, Ali Woods always gravitated towards creativity and went on to study English Literature at the University of York. Being influenced by Live at the Apollo and TV comedians, growing up, he started his pursuit into comedy by joining the University Comedy Society. Dipping his toes in with the improv world, Ali started his style of comedy here and enjoyed the chaotic nature of improvisation. 

“I always liked being the centre of attention…  I always liked at school people thinking I was funny”

With his comedy society, Ali was given the opportunity to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe and performed Improvisation there. This came paired with stand up that he used to do on campus.

Going through a self-recognised slump at University, Ali always wanted to push himself to constantly improve. Not wanting to cruise through his university experience, he recognised that he had the potential to do more and push himself. Having a “positive impact” as a result of his potential was something that he wanted to do with his life. By using diaries to navigate that “knot in his stomach” and cruising feeling, allowed him to recognise what he needed to do. It was at this point in our conversation, I realised that I too was all too familiar with the feeling of being on auto pilot.

“I hate cruising…because then you’ll wake up when you’re 80 and you’ve done nothing!”

Talking about his outlets, Ali also uses the gym as a way to keep himself in check, not only physically, but mentally too. In the gym, the amount of work you put in is relative and this is the same in comedy. The harder you work on your act is proportionate to your audience reactions and Ali attests to this.

“You can’t just be given a healthier body and it’s the same in comedy, its’ all you”

Following graduation, just like so many creatives, Ali had to deal with balancing his art with actually making money. Having revealed to me that he was once rejected for being “too creative” for an advertisement role, he realised his heart wasn’t fully invested in the jobs he was applying for. His love for performance is what he was passionate about. This was when Ali decided to take active steps in his journey to pursue his comedy career.

Making the decision to move back to North London after graduating, Ali’s plan was to get part-time work whilst working on his material. After reluctance from his parents, he had to enter the graduate level working world – he hated it. This became the catalyst for him to make a strategic plan for himself and get back into performing gigs. By breaking down his goals Ali is now well on his way to becoming a professional comedian. With comedy as his priority focus, Ali also works at a PR firm part-time.

Because of his hard work, Ali has gone on to win comedy awards, and performing at some of the biggest comedy clubs in London and around the UK. He indulged me in some of his manifestations and sayings that keep him motivated. I for one am very sure that even more success is on the line for Ali and I can’t wait to interview him again when he’s on our big screens!

“Everyone has their own version of success”

Anna Whittaker

Anna Whittaker, the winner of the NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) Top Scoop Award and proud journalist, is a passionate advocate for local news. Now a journalist at The Derby Telegraph, Anna pursued her writing talents and interests from when she was young to this day. With her own father being a journalist, it seems that journalistic talent runs in the family.

With the influences of her father growing up, Anna couldn’t see herself doing anything else, so pursuing journalism is what fuelled her choice to study journalism at University in Sheffield. Born and raised in Derby, meant that she has developed a network in the Midlands and began her journey with work experience at the Burton Mail.

With exposure to how a newsroom works and operates, Anna pursued the connections that she built with her work experience in order to keep her foot in the door. From covering different aspects of journalism to getting her first byline in print, Anna sought enjoyment in her time working for a newspaper. She brought this forward to her time studying at University and wrote freelance for her local paper back home, The Derby Telegraph. She found that her newsroom experience gave her the confidence to chase leads and leg up in comparison to those who hadn’t seen the live workings of a newspaper. By the time she graduated Anna was freelancing for The Derby Telegraph for “three days a week, despite technically living in Sheffield”.

Her pieces at the The Derby Telegraph is what propelled her to be considered for prestigious nationwide awards. From winning the NCTJ Top Scoop Award in 2017 to 30 to Watch Young Journalist Award in July 2020, Anna is a pure example of how local news can compete with the national papers.

Although Anna was a great example of a go getter journalist, she is very much still in a discovery mode. Her intrigue into investigative journalism is the report that got her noticed for her 30 to Watch Award. By investigating an illegal tooth whitening business, Anna dipped her toes in this world and is something she wants to consider more of in the future. Following her graduation, the contacts she had built within The Derby Telegraph urged her to apply for a reporter role and to her own surprise she got the job. The acceptance of this role has provided Anna with platforms that she thought she would have to wait for.

“It was a natural progression”

Anna revealed that work experience is key for young inspiring journalists. As her career was launched because of her networking and hard work during her work experience, she attributes her success to this. I for one am looking forward to seeing what Anna’s future holds.