Hello hello and welcome! My name is Carly Lanning and I work as an editorial strategist and trauma-informed journalist based out of Brooklyn. With a varied background in culture & trends research, digital media, and journalism, my career has been spent building multi-faceted editorial projects and research initiatives for companies including The Rockefeller Foundation, YouTube, Harper Collins, ComiXology and more. 

As of March 2022, I joined The Rockefeller Foundation as their Innovation team’s first ever Manager of Impact Storytelling and Content Strategy. In this role, I’m helping build a storytelling and content strategy that highlights and grows the reach of their incredible projects – both internally and externally. 

For 7+ years, I worked at a creative agency managing a variety of clients within the pop culture, tech, and media spaces. From 2020 – 2022, I worked as their Editorial Lead helping clients produce diverse and inclusive editorial content that focused on building trusting, personal relationships with their audiences.

Previous to this, I worked as the agency’s first ever Senior YouTube Trend Specialist and was embedded with YouTube’s Culture and Trends team. Over the 5+ years of working with this team, I helped build their now international storytelling and research team from the ground up, putting into place archiving structures and writing key stories that helped inform YouTube about YouTube. My research covered everything from the latest viral trend to community deep dives into mental health, disability, the LGBTQ+ community, and more. I began working in the YouTube world in 2012 as a magazine reporter and from there, spent the next 10+ years across various roles diving deeper and deeper into trend spotting and community mapping of the platform. 

Through working with so many different clients, I’ve been lucky enough to develop expertises in:

  • Copywriting and editing of any and all editorial materials including blogs, feature articles, infographics, videos, newsletters, social copy, speeches, and more.
  • Building communication strategies for research departments and for marketing and brand campaigns including emails, newsletters, PR articles, and more.
  • Global culture & trends research and insights that combine quantitative data and narrative storytelling that identifies the trends and community voices having a larger impact on our global culture.  
  • Deep knowledge of the digital media creator community and how to write about/write for the creator ecosystem (example) 

Adjacent to my 9-5 job, I’ve continue to freelance as a trauma-informed journalist and have published features in SELF Magazine, Renegade Media, Psychology Today, NBC, Thrillist, Ms. Magazine, The Daily Dot, and more. I’m passionate about using my writing to create more compassionate, trauma-informed conversations around mental health, trauma, and sexual/intimate partner violence, and I’ve been lucky enough to do this in my own journalism – as well as a consultant. 

Over the past decade, I have worked in numerous capacities serving survivors of sexual violence – from community education to advocacy to writing. Over the past two years, I began working as an editorial consultant for anti-violence organizations – including New York Alliance Against Sexual Assault, Exhale to Inhale, and the Resource Sharing Project – where I helped their teams produce toolkits, annual reports, profiles, feature articles, and more.

This work inspired me to found Voices Editorial, a trauma-informed editorial and storytelling consultancy dedicated to providing high-quality writing resources to anti-violence organizations and survivor communities around the country. For more information on what Voices Editorial provides and how it could best support your own work, please check out its landing page here.

Whew, that was a LOT of words about a LOT of things – thank you for bearing with me. At the heart of it all is my curiosity around humans and my commitment to using storytelling to help others feel understood, to feel empowered, and to heal. 

For a more personal look at my writing, please visit my portfolio here or my LinkedIn here. And if you’re in the market for personal book reviews and writing updates, my Instagram Girlsgotthoughts has you covered. 

Thanks for taking the time to visit here, I deeply appreciate it.