Mitch Lewis's Linkedin Analytics

I’m an experienced communicator, with a strong project and strategy background. I’m confident working with stakeholders at all levels, and enjoy finding creative ways to engage people. My career has spanned internal and external communication in professional services, retail, motoring, and telecommunications. I believe communication may start from the what, why, where, who and how but people are at the heart of every message and everybody has a story worth telling. I also love a segue, and 'story' brings me to writing and creating tiny art. I don’t understand verb conjugation or gerunds but I like to think I know when words work and when they don’t. I read a lot, and I think that helps. One day I submitted a picture book manuscript and a marketing plan (which no marketer would recognise as such) and was lucky enough to end up with The Little Red Ute series. And I mean it when I say ‘lucky’. You need to do the work but you also need things to fall your way to get a book contract. Before that, I held mentorships with the Australian Society of Authors and the Australian Horror Writers Association. The next step is making sure those mentorships weren’t earned in vain. Novellas – beautiful, spare things you can knock over in a train trip. They don’t sell but I love reading them and I love writing them. So that’s what I do. Practice may not make perfect but it makes you better, so my latest thing is writing haikus in cards instead of saying ‘Happy birthday’. My other grand project is a manuscript on tiny art (more on the art below). The proudest moment in my career was when I was invited to read one of my Little Red Ute books at my son’s preschool. I finished reading and asked ‘Any questions?’ One boy raised his hand and asked why I was wearing a blue shirt. I thought that was a wonderful, original question. I smile every time I think of it. When I’m not writing, I like to make tiny sculptures, sketch whatever comes to mind, and paint miniature landscapes, portraits and genre scenes on old business cards and recycled materials, like tiles and wood. Most of my paintings don’t turn out as I imagined them but sometimes I paint something I’m rather pleased with. Whatever the result, making art makes me happy. It puts me in a euphoric mood that can be annoying for others. People frown at me and say “What are you so happy about?” I was a finalist in the 2017 Blacktown City Art Prize and the 2018 Kangaroo Valley Art Prize (semi-finalist in 2020), which, along with the Little Red Ute books, are just about the highlights of my life.