Today we’d like to introduce you to Steph West
Hi Steph, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve always been a storyteller. I started as a kid with the “Great Chocolate Bar Escape” in elementary school and parlayed that into a newspaper I sold for five cents a copy to my third grade classmates. The headline was “Ohio State Fat Baby is Born.” I worked as an investigative journalist for a long time before landing in sports covering the NHL and CBJ. I also appeared as a guest broadcaster on Blue Jackets Live. I did that for five years before transitioning out of journalism at a time when print was transitioning to digital and many of us were being laid off. I put my skills to good use, telling corporate brand stories in digital marketing and communications, and learning video production. I took all of that experience and eventually started my indie film production company, Eleven One Productions, and my indie publishing company, Red Fern Press. I’ve produced my work and the work of other creatives under Eleven One, and I’ve published two books under my Red Fern label. I’m actively seeking new authors to publish under my Red Fern label. I’m also going to law school at Ohio Northern University, and I intend to use my law degree within the sports, media, film, and publishing landscapes.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not once has it ever been smooth. And that’s to be expected. These are very competitive, difficult fields to navigate, and that’s made even more difficult when you’re a woman trying to scale those walls. The biggest issue is access to money, whether that’s for creation of the project, distributing the project, and/or marketing the project. If any of those three things are limited, then your project, no matter how good or interesting it is, is going to be limited. Social media does help to alleviate some of these aspects and every once in a while something will break through, but overall, it takes money to get in front of audience.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The core of who I am is based in writing. Everything flows from that. I’m a professional writer and I’m always pushing the boundaries of what I can do and trying to learn new things. I think most people know me from sports when I was in front of the camera for “Blue Jackets Live,” and then I parlayed that into film production. But film production started in writing—screenplays. I wrote screenplays and was trying to sell them so I did a short “proof of concept” film called “Olsky,” and once I got behind the camera, I learned that I loved film production. But my love always starts with the story and in 2023, I won the Women in Film and Video Screenplay Development competition for my sports scripts “Clean Break” and “The Third Period.” Then, a couple years ago, I decided to go back to my roots of writing and I started my publishing company, Red Fern Press. My debut book was an award-winning memoir titled “On Fire,” and released in 2023. In 2024, I released my debut fiction title “Newcross.” And my first rom-com, “Double Digits,” will launch on Amazon on Feb. 18 of this year. I’m most proud of the things I write. I think my ability to craft stories is what sets me apart and allows me to write and to also coach writers, which is why I want to bring on writers to Red Fern Press. I’m actively seeking new authors under my indie press label.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I love how much you can do in Columbus. It truly has everything you could possibly want from entertainment and sports, to high-class educational institutions and business development opportunities. It’s really become what you would expect a state’s capital city to be—the hub of the state, in more ways than one. I love that. I do wish we had more film opportunities here, but I think that’s already changing for the better and I can see a lot of growth in that area.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://elevenoneproductions.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieannwest/
- Other: https://redfernpress.pub/
