Stump'd

By day, I’m a mild-mannered reporter, by night, a bass-playing, ass-kicking uber geek.

WORK

I am a writer, blogger and journalist, covering everything from fashion to fight shows. Until 2010, I was the web editor of Australian independent news site Crikey, and before that, the editor and principal writer of well-known (and now sadly defunct) journal of note, Australasian Taekwondo and assistant editor of Blitz Martial Arts and International Kickboxer magazines.

I also work as a freelance arts, entertainment and features writer, contributing to Melbourne’s largest broadsheet newspaper, The Age, and Australia’s most popular online news and entertainment portal ninemsn, amongst others.

You can read more about my work here, and read some of it here.

And yes, my formidable writing skills are for hire, thanks for asking. Shoot me an email (ruth @ stumpdinpdx.com) or even contact me on the Twitter, if you’re that way inclined.

REST

Here are a few of my favourite things:

The internet. That sounds so sad, but it’s true: I enjoy spending large amounts of my time on the ‘tubes. The boy and I sometimes choose to communicate via Skype instead of actual speech when sitting next to each other in the same room. What can I say? We’re a web 2.0 couple. Our relationship exists in the cloud.

Reading. I am a voracious consumer of media; a greedy, gutsy glutton of news and current affairs. Nom. It goes back to my job at Crikey, where I was basically paid to read newspapers, magazines and blogs from around the world, all day long, and be constantly wired into the global news cycle, 24/7. I sometimes read actual, meat-world books, made out of real paper, too.

Food. I’m a passionate (but not preachy) vegetarian and coffee nerd. And after working my way through uni as a bartender, I also mix a pretty mean martini and enjoy the occasional, odd chilled glass of amber fluid. My favourite things to eat include (but are not limited to): Vietnamese rice paper rolls, yellow nectarines, burritos, anything that marries peanut butter with chocolate, avocado, baked eggs, goats cheese, wasabi, Vegemite (oh, I’m such a walking Aussie cliche, I know), hot chips, and tofu.

PLAY

I started playing bass at age 10, following the revelation that the violin wasn’t winning me any friends. I cut my chops under the tutelage of riot grrls and washed-up rockers at Collingwood’s (in)famous Rock ‘n Roll High School, and joined my first band at 13 (we were called The Drapes, and are best remembered for a hilariously naive cover of Alice Cooper’s “Feed My Frankenstein”. I genuinely did think it was about food). I spent my teenage years playing gigs at crusty rock and punk pubs around Melbourne on school nights (which sounds much cooler than it was; nothing kills your street cred like loading in from the family station wagon with your mum in the front seat). My most recent venture was with chick rock outfit Baby 8, who are still tearing it up around Melbourne.

I also really enjoy kicking people in the head. I trained in taekwondo throughout my childhood and teenage years, but decided I liked being punched in the face more than pretending to be Korean, so I traded in my white pyjamas for a pair of pretty satin shorts in 2008 and began training and competing in Muay Thai (it’s like kickboxing, but with more knees and elbows and fewer mullets). My current fight record in 5-3-2.