Meet a Journalist

A journalist's profile, stories and career in the field of journalism. Know a journalist who should be profiled here? Send an e-mail to Janet E. Bardon

February 4, 2000
Vida Jurisic
Editor (In Chief), Luggage, Leathergoods & Accessories
Markham, ON
lavida@globalserve.net

I "detoured" into writing, but the vehicle was always the word. It was first as a professional translator that I started gainfully working with words. I obtained an M.A. Translation from the Université de Montréal, and landed a job with a totally French company, where being English was just as much an anomaly as was my surname. I was commonly referred to as "la traductrice" (the translator) because the good folk working there simply didn't grasp what translation was really about. After five and a half years, my job was downsized -- that was in 1976 when such terminology didn't exist. Being out of work, I had to seek new gainful employment.

Next came my days as a travelling English/French language teacher. This led me into the corporate boardrooms to teach eager, and, often not too eager students, how to speak the other language. I learned to tap resources within myself unknown to me, and since I travelled to many assignments by cab, I got to know a breed of unsung heroes, the gentlemen cabbies of Montreal. The downside was that this was contract work -- so no assignment, no pay. How I used to beleaguer my boss with my need to know how much work he could give me. His consistent reply was that there was no job assurance.

Then followed my days in copywriting with VIA Rail, Quebec retail greats such as Miracle Mart and the now defunct Steinberg. Come to think of it the department where I worked at VIA, no longer exists. In fact, it seems my professional past has been systematically deleted, so you might say I am today where I should be. Other stints followed, interspersed with a return to translation. The turning point came when I moved to Toronto in 1985.

Within a few months, I haphazardly came across a man who would be my bridge to the writing world. He suggested I call a man he knew, who was a writer and who, he thought, could give me a push in the right direction. I did as he suggested, and the next thing I knew, I found myself in an editor's office at the mighty Maclean Hunter mecca. And if that wasn't wondrous enough, this editor would become my mentor. Those were the days of good assignments, steady work and of new adventures. Because of my knowledge of French, I was able to develop Quebec beats and features on Quebec business for trade and consumer publications.

When the recession hit in the early 90s, it was a time for reflection. Did I really want this writing life? The economic wheel was no longer well oiled and I had to find new ways of earning my daily bread, butter, and jam. Once again, my language skills were instrumental in getting assignments at home, in the U.S. and abroad. Thanks to my writing life, I met diplomats, monks, environmental experts, men and women who owned their business and dared to innovate, the last dairy independent producer in Quebec, and am now an editor. The icing on the cake is that I made dear friends: the editor at Maclean Hunter, who has long since retired, and a well-known Canadian children's author.

If I were to do it over again, I would not change any of the detours I made for they got me to this destination. And, to answer that question of questions, "did I always know I was a writer"?, the answer is writing chose me, not the other way around.