Welcome!

My name is Stephen G. Parks. I’ve lived an unusual life, on four continents and in communities both well-off and under-developed. You’ve probably never met me and that’s fine. It’s a big world and you haven’t met most of its inhabitants.

I grew up in a region of Canada known as Southern Ontario. It was a place of many opportunities. I volunteered at the local community cable TV station, learning camera work, lighting and how to wire a mic.

Later, in university, I started my own newsletter, making fun of the student politicians and the school’s rather staid newspaper. When a group of students decided to start a second newspaper, they sought me out and asked if I wanted to participate. Within 2 years I was the editor.

After uni, I fell into the position of editor of a weekly entertainment paper, helping them transition to desktop publishing. I becoming the production manager for a small chain of non-editorial papers. Again, I led the transition from traditional paste-up to desktop publishing. This was where I learned Photoshop. Once we were successful, we were bought out by a large competitor, and my team was let go en masse.

Fortunately, I had trained myself on html. I landed a position with a new company that would become one of Canada’s top new media firms. This was where I was mentored in User Experience Design.

There I would have stayed if not for a personal tragedy. Reevaluating my life, I realized that I had two goals to achieve. The first was a nebulous “Go to Africa and make a difference.” The second was to become the author I’d always wanted to be.

Since then, I’ve lived in South Korea, Spain, Namibia, South Africa and now Malaysia.

One common thread throughout my life is that I’ve been a storyteller: I drew my own comic books as a youth; I wrote fiction as a teen; I was a journalist in university and beyond; later, I defined information flows as an information designer; I communicated language as an ESL teacher; and I’ve shone a light on some very deserving people as a communications specialist and fundraiser for educational charities in Africa.

Now it’s time to focus on my stories. And I’ve got a number to tell…