By Celena Shepherd University of Nebraska-Lincoln Shannon Coulter, 41, has not taken the traditional route as an editor, but she always takes her editing skills with her. Upon graduation from Vanderbilt University with a double major in communications and Spanish, she was not sure what she wanted to do. She entered the corporate world as a communications consultant for Mercer Human Resource Consulting and then ROC Group ready for the opportunity to work with different companies. This is where her love for editing began. “In all the stuff that I did there was always editing,” Coulter said. “When I was the project manager on a project, there would be multiple writers and we would always have to edit each other’s work.” Next, she worked with wellness programs focusing on halting smoking or promoting a healthy lifestyle through incentive programs for companies like AstraZeneca and Abbott Laboratories. The positive feedback and impact she saw were rewarding. “I just loved it and I saw people getting really healthy,” Coulter said. Although working as a consultant in Chicago sparked this passion and drew her towards editing, the corporate world took its toll. “I worked 80 hours a week, and I didn’t go on a vacation without my laptop for 10 years,” Coulter said. “I was like, 'This is not fulfilling.'” Upon a quest for a more fulfilling career, Coulter stumbled upon a whole new adventure: a family. She got married and gained the new role as a mother to three step-children. “It completely flipped my life in a way that I didn’t have any preparation for,” Coulter said. Following a trend of change, she left her career to start a business called Planet Fassa with her husband. It was a wellness company for children, which featured six children’s books called The Fassa Tails, a blog and an interactive website, which promoted imagination and healthy habits through Fassa, or fun-activities-stories-social-awards, with hours of off screen activities. She used her editing skills when she wrote and edited the books and was the website editor. Coulter created this company because she noticed her step-children were glued to technology and never outside playing for long. With an extensive background in wellness programming, this was something that finally fulfilled her. “Owning your own business is very hard, but very rewarding,” Coulter said. Planet Fassa faced unforeseen challenges and after six years closed its doors in 2015. Coulter feels she did too much too quick, and some children did not respond as imagined to the activities. “What we found was that the kids who would do them rarely went back to the computer because they had so much fun doing the activities,” Coulter said. She does not regret starting the company and learned a lot about herself and about failure through the experience. “I took my company failing as me being a failure,” Coulter said. “It was very bad and took me a long time to bounce back.” She realized that it was not healthy to tie her identity to her work because when people experience failure in activities that does not define them. “It’s okay to fail,” Coulter said. “Most people fail multiple times before they succeed.” It was time for another chapter in Coulter’s life. Her focus shifted more to motherhood, when she became a stay-at-home mom. “The most fulfilling thing I’ve done is raise these kids,” Coulter said. Coulter loves the array of diverse jobs she can do as an editor while still being an involved parent. “I think if you get good enough at what you do the cool thing about writing and editing is you can do it as a freelancer,” Coulter said. She has edited a book called “Adventures of the Tornado Kid: Whirling Home Toward Timeless Values” and another book for the past five years featuring a collection of faith-centered reflections called “Morning Reflections at the Ministry Service Center” written by Glenn McDonald, the director of mission integration at The Ascension Ministry Service Center. “The message is so wonderful. It’s thrilling for me to be able to read something that interests me and learn while I’m editing it,” Coulter said. “I think that’s awesome.” In addition to these books, Coulter has written and edited newsletters, website content and a TV comedy pilot. Freelancing allows her to have balance in her life, while doing what she loves and taking care of her family. This past year Coulter and her family uprooted their life to move to Carmel, Indiana. She is still freelancing and working on restarting her company. She is reediting all her books and plans to write a seventh in The Fassa Tails series. She hopes to revitalize the company through a simpler concept by removing the website and selling an optional activity book to go with the series. Wherever life has taken Coulter, editing has followed. Throughout her diverse career she has learned many lessons and is thankful that editing was a skill she could utilize almost anytime and anywhere. “I just think it’s really important to know you don’t have to pinhole yourself,” Coulter said. “You can do anything and if it doesn’t work out with one thing you can try something else.”
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A note about the content: This site showcases the final projects of University of Nebraska-Lincoln editing students. Each semester, students pick a journalist or communications professional to profile. This is their work.
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