It’s almost 4 p.m.

I can picture my 12-year-old self hopping off of the bus, running up the long, rocky driveway to make it to the TV in time.

My grin is ear to ear as I turn on the TV to see Giuliana Rancic and Jason Kennedy smiling back at me. But while their voices play in the background, my attention is now focused on rushing to the computer room to boot up the desktop, where I can quickly log on to Madison Pettis’ fanpage.

I guess you could say I was a fangirl before that actually became a thing.

It started out as an obsession with movies. With my mother being a police officer and working part-time as security at our local theater, I was able to sneak into any movie I wanted for 8 hours on Friday nights. I spent most of my childhood discovering my love for Twilight, Marvel, and everything in between.

But one thing I loved even more than the films on the screen were the stories of the people behind the characters.

I can’t remember when I discovered E!. I just know that one day, I couldn’t look up from Keeping Up With the Kardashians or Mrs. Eastwood & Company.

And once I discovered E! News, my adolescent brain thought, “Could this really be a career?”

Fast forward 13 years later and the passion is still the same.

There’s something so magical about hearing how an artist poured into their art; how a creator poured into their creation. The ins and outs, the ups and downs.

I love hearing their stories and I love getting to share them.

That passion extended from just movies and musicians and art to everyone. How did you discover your passion for this? How did you overcome this to get to that?

I love my job. There was a time when I resented it. The crime, the hardships, the hours. But I realized the power of change and the power of community through it.

How storytelling brings people together in a time we’re seeing division all around us.

The media gets a bad rep nowadays. Whether that’s because of the way people in charge have manipulated the community into thinking we’re the bad guys, or if we did it to ourselves, that stands to be heard.

But what I can say is I’m proud of the journalist I’ve become, the place I work for, and the people I work with.

I see how hard they work to make a difference in the lives of the people around them. How hard they work to uncover the truth. How they help people (I need to start adding myself to the equation instead of saying “they” all the time).

All of this to say, there’s no linear journey or anyone with the same story, but we all have the same thing in common: a passion for making a difference and bringing people together through storytelling.