Tracey Izatt
Copywriter
Profile
I write for people who need a stranger to keep reading.
Twenty years in factual television taught me how attention works: find the one true thing in a subject and build it so somebody scrolling past stops, on a deadline that doesn't move. I came up through investigative journalism and radio before that, so I research fast and I write clean.
These days I write public safety copy for a state agency, where being misunderstood has consequences. It's the best editing school I've found.
What I write
Websites and landing pages
Homepages, about pages, product pages and campaign landers: the pages a business needs to do something.
Email and lifecycle
Welcome sequences, campaigns, win-backs and the automated emails nobody has opened since launch.
Brand voice and messaging
Positioning, value props and voice guides, so a whole team sounds like one company.
Long-form and editorial
Case studies, founder pieces, newsletters and features that keep a reader past the first scroll.
Experience
Communications specialist
Washington State Department of Natural Resources · 2022 to present
- Write executive messaging, talking points and public statements for the commissioner and senior directors on politically sensitive files.
- Serve as alternate public information officer during active wildfire emergencies, writing public safety copy under live scrutiny that has to change what people do that weekend.
- Turn dense scientific, legal, regulatory and policy material into plain language that ordinary readers finish.
- Built communications strategy and core messaging from nothing for two offices, internal and external.
- Led all communications for Washington State's inaugural Tribal Wildfire Summit, a government-to-government convening of more than 40 tribal nations with state and federal partners.
Co-executive producer, director and story producer
TLC · Discovery · Bravo · PBS/NOVA · BBC · Hulu · WE tv · VH1 · 2004 to 2023
- Built episode structure and on-screen narrative out of raw footage as story producer and supervising story producer, the writing job at the centre of unscripted television.
- Wrote and pitched original series concepts to network buyers. Created and pitched Fatal Frontier: Evil in Alaska, commissioned by Oxygen, then worked the series as casting producer.
- Wrote narration and voice-over for documentary broadcast, including World Heritage Sites for NHK.
- Produced a documentary profile of HIV/AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho, communicating unfolding science accurately during an active public health crisis.
- Produced HIV/AIDS medication compliance materials simultaneously in English, Spanish and American Sign Language, with accessibility written in from the first draft.
- Led editorial teams of up to 30 and carried legal and standards review across a full production slate.
Investigative segment producer
CBC, Toronto · 2002 to 2003
- Researched and wrote investigative segments for national broadcast across health, science and public affairs, on daily deadline.
- Built and kept source relationships across government, health and advocacy communities.
News director and on-air host
CKLN 88.1 FM, Toronto · 1989 to 1994
- Wrote and directed daily public affairs programming, and ran a volunteer newsroom.
- Set editorial strategy across health, housing, politics and culture, with a beat focused on voices the mainstream press was missing.
Also
- Legislative Assembly of Ontario, information clerk, 1996 to 1999. Legislative research and ministerial correspondence in a high-protocol environment.
- Toronto International Film Festival, assistant programmer, 1998 to 2000. Press liaison and public Q&A moderation.
- Tennyson's Wake, feature screenplay, 1998. Sold to CinImage Productions of New Brunswick. Telefilm Canada Feature Screenplay Development Award, Praxis Feature Screenwriting Award and Nicholl Fellowships quarterfinalist (1999).
- LIU Brooklyn, adjunct faculty, and University of Toronto, teaching assistant, 2005 to 2010.
Selected credits
RIVR Media / Oxygen · 2021
Red Marble Media / Investigation Discovery · 2019
Education
- Praxis Centre for Screenwriters, Simon Fraser University. Fellowship in professional screenwriting.
- MA, Film and Television Studies, with distinction. University of Amsterdam, 1996.
- BA, Cinema Studies, with distinction. University of Toronto, 1995. Minors in women's studies and semiotics.
- Norman Jewison Graduate Scholarship. Joseph Hemblem Scholarship.