Jonathan Trundle
From the Editor:
When I was in the 7th grade, I won a statewide essay contest about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Honestly, I didn’t know what a magazine editor was at that point. More than anything, I wanted to move to Nashville and work in country music.
Eventually, I did.
I graduated high school, packed my gold Saturn sedan, and drove from my native East Tennessee to Murfreesboro, where I majored in Recording Industry at MTSU. Beverly Keel, dean of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, discovered I could write. She made me believe I could do it professionally. Sandee Suitt believed it, too. Sandee gave me my first writing job—a features reporter at Murfreesboro’s Daily News Journal. She asked me what I liked. I said music. She said, “Great, write about that.”
Without knowing it, at 21, my adult life had fallen into place. I have since spent more than two decades reporting on the people, places, businesses, food, families, and music—lots of country music—that make Nashville the culturally rich and welcoming community we call home. Twenty years of that time, I worked at Gannett properties, including The DNJ and The Tennessean. The other five years included an abbreviated run at an artist management company and as a writer for a host of national entertainment publications.
I feel like my entire professional life led to this—your new editor at Nashville Lifestyles! So, if you’ve read The Tennessean, USA Today, People, or a few others, my name and face aren’t new to you—just in a different place.
I came by the love of country music honestly. Dolly Parton and I share the same hometown. I grew up in Sevierville, Tennessee, so close to Dollywood that their bellowing train whistle was my alarm clock.
In 1997, home became two places—Nashville and Sevierville. I’ve now spent more time living in Music City than in the Smoky Mountains. The opportunity to help showcase the local authenticities that make the Nashville community so much more than a bachelorette hotspot is wiggly puppies and chocolate chip cookies for my soul.
Cindy Watts