UNB Alumni
Telling our #ProudlyUNB stories

UNB young alumnus Josh O'Kane tells us about his journey from UNB, to working for the Globe and Mail to writing a book on Canadian musician, Joel Plaskett. Released on April 1, O'Kane's book is entitled  Nowhere with You: The East Coast Anthems of Joel Plaskett, The Emergency and Thrush Hermit.

Q: Did you come to UNB knowing which degree program and career path you wanted to explore?

In high school, I was 100 per cent certain I was going to be a doctor, so I enrolled in science. That plan unraveled quickly, and I started making brash, overcompensating decisions. I realized I hated studying biology, so I majored in chemistry. Then I realized I was no good at handling chemicals behind a fume hood, so I started taking a bunch of psychology courses. At the same time, I was writing for student papers – first the Baron in Saint John and then the Brunswickan in Fredericton – as a part-time job. It took finishing two unrelated degrees to realize that neither of the careers they prepared for would make me as happy as journalism.

Q: What is your most memorable moment from your time at UNB?

Professionally, it was probably when I sent my first issue of the Brunswickan to the printer as editor-in-chief at 7 a.m. I was groggy-eyed from nearly 24 hours of production and ready to sleep through the day’s classes, but I had made a thing. There’s a more social scene that has stuck with me for years, however. I’m in my room at MacKenzie House, where I was a hall proctor, getting ready for the annual formal with friends. In my head, we’re all wearing tank tops for some reason, dancing around to a pre-EDM French house band. Everyone in that memory has stayed in my life. There’s Christian, who took the author photo for my book, and he’s engaged to Alison, and I stayed  with them when I was in Halifax for my book launch. There’s Chris, who travelled from Australia last year to spend half a month with me in Toronto, which included attending a huge Drake concert. And there’s Mark, who let me stand at his wedding last year on top of a mountain in B.C. The res-room moment itself is kind of innocuous, but the people who were there still mean the world to me.

Q: What was your first job after graduation?

While I was editor of the Brunswickan, I was elected by the Canadian University Press – a national student press cooperative – to edit and manage their national newswire. That’s what took me to Toronto; I’ve never left. Shoutout to the student press movement.

Q: What is your current job? 

I’ve been reporting for The Globe and Mail since 2011. For the past few years, my main focus has been on small business and commercial property, but I also write about music and pop culture whenever I can.

Q: Has your current career met your expectations?

I graduated into a recession and all I wanted was a stable job in journalism. It was, and still is, an incredibly tough job market to crack. If you’d told me I’d wind up reporting for The Globe and Mail within a few years of finishing undergrad, there’s no way I would have believed you.

Q: If you weren’t in your current career field, what would you be doing? I’d probably be stuck at a fume hood somewhere, fumbling chemicals and burning my hands, embarrassing all the profs at UNB who tried to teach me the right ways to do things.

Q: What was your ‘aha’ moment?

When I was hired as EIC of the Brunswickan, I was like, “Huh. Maybe I can do this for real.” I’d been writing and editing for a few years by then – in many ways journalism was a respite from formulaic lab reports – but until that moment, it felt more like a hobby. And, because I was determined to finish my chemistry degree (and subsequent psychology degree), it felt unreachable as a career before then. In reality, I probably learned more in the student press than in my later graduate journalism education.

Q: What encouraged you to write Nowhere with You, your newly released book on Canadian musician Joel Plaskett?

Joel Plaskett’s music was in many ways the soundtrack to my move to Toronto, and fueled a lot of self-interrogation about my place in the world once I’d left the Maritimes. I’m fascinated by the way art can reflect its sense of place, and that informs a lot of my reporting. After a decade of writing in 500-to-1000-word bursts, I wanted to challenge myself with something much longer, more nuanced and more complicated than a newspaper story. Examining Plaskett’s music in the context of where it’s created, especially given my own experience, seemed like a great fit.

Q: Can you provide a synopsis on the book?

It’s all about context-setting. This includes a look at the culture of leaving that’s plagued the east coast for centuries, and how that has fit into pop culture there since the 20^th century, including the Halifax music scene in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But the bulk of the book largely looks at how Joel Plaskett fit into that scene, outlived it, and thrived, without having to move to a major music centre to pull it off. With lots of fun anecdotes and song explorations, too. You can order it on Amazon.

Q: What was the most rewarding and the most challenging aspect about writing Nowhere with You?

Newspapers are inherently discardable, and now I’ve made something that will kick around on readers’ bookshelves and in their minds for more than a morning. That’s kind of mind-blowing. The most challenging part of it was also the hardest part of working at the Brunswickan, and still plagues me at the Globe: transcribing interviews. Interviewing 60 people is one mountain to climb; it’s a whole other challenge to type all of them up in order to write a comprehensible draft on a looming deadline. I can’t believe I pulled that off.

Q: If you had one piece of advice to share with fellow young alumni, what would it be?

Don’t kick yourself if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. Just try everything. It took me two bachelor degrees to figure out that what I wanted to do had nothing to do with either of them.