If you Google “Gretyl Macalaster”, one of the most popular links to appear is a video of me flying in an aerobatic plane last summer ahead of the Boston-Portsmouth Regional Air Show.
This is the link to the video.
It makes my job look awesome. And that day it was. But most days it is significantly less glamorous.
Those stories don’t show up on a Google search.
But since 2006, I have been sharing the stories of New Hampshire with newspaper readers across New Hampshire. I spent two years going through journalistic boot camp with Foster’s Daily Democrat, a daily newspaper based in Dover, New Hampshire. I began working as a correspondent with the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2009, a position that continues to challenge me today.
I spend a lot of hours in municipal meetings, trying to fulfill journalism’s basic role as being another check and balance on government. It is not necessarily a way to make friends, but it is a way to do my part to ensure democracy continues to thrive.
I graduated from the The University of New Hampshire in 2005 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and the idea that I wanted to write for a living.
I have been very grateful to have been able to do that as a journalist for the past six years.
I love this job because I love telling the stories of New Hampshire. I love leading people to the local business they have walked past but never into, and to the stories of seemingly ordinary people in their neighborhoods doing extraordinary things.
I see this vocational and cultural exchange to Germany as a way to broaden my ability to share stories. I think it is through personal connection and conversation that stories are discovered, and I think that is when we truly learn about others and ourselves.
I can’t wait to spend an entire month immersed in German culture, living with German families, eating local food (and chocolate, and coffee, etc.) meeting German journalists and business people.
I am excited about this opportunity in particular because New Hampshire and Germany do have some strong ties, and I think there are active segments of the New Hampshire economy that could learn from Germany’s success, particularly in the area of small-scale renewable energy projects.
Germany is the state’s fourth largest international trading partner, and is a global leader in renewable energy, ahead of the United States.
I am also looking forward to getting out of New Hampshire for a month, and gaining some new perspective on the state I have lived in for most of my life, and expect to spend most of the rest of my life in as well.
I live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A small city on the Piscataqua River. My house is less than 800 steps from our city square, eight miles from my favorite sandy beach, about one-hour from the bustling city of Boston, home of my beloved Red Sox baseball team, and one-hour from the White Mountains, where my boyfriend and I spend many summer weekends tent camping and relaxing.
I live close to my parents, Carole and Peter, and my sister, Jennefer, her fiancee, Ashley, and their son, Blake and we all enjoy spending time together.
My boyfriend, Matt, and I have been together for more than 10 years, and live in a 19th century home with our cat, Camie.
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