I am a journalist specializing in urban issues and city politics in the Vancouver region, which I’ve covered since 1994. I end up covering a broad range of issues in this endlessly changing city: drug policy, bike lanes, billion-dollar development projects, homelessness, garbage debates, and more.

I write frequently for the Globe and Mail’s B.C. section and Report on Business. From 2008 to 2015, I had a I regular column in Vancouver magazine, Urban Fix, where apparently some people liked what I do so much that I won a few regional and national awards for it.

I still write for Vancouver magazine as the topics move me. Other publications I have written for in the course of my career include the Vancouver Sun (where I worked for 20 years), BCBusiness, Canadian Architect, Canadian Business, University Affairs, the American website Citiscope, Literary Review of Canada, South China Morning Post, The National in Abu Dhabi, the Georgia Straight, Western Living, Homemakers, and the Guardian. As well, I do political commentary for Radio Canada, CBC Radio, and CKNW.

You can follow me on Twitter at fabulavancouver and this blog, of course, pulls together everything I do along with attracting an eclectic crowd of readers and commenters.

You can reach me through the contact page here, at francesbulaATgmail.com or on my cellphone at 604.812.6205. If you have a complex story to tell, it’s often best to send me the details by email first along with a contact number.

I have been a journalism teacher since 1995. I am the former chair of the journalism department at Langara College and continue to teach there, sending students out to the community report on local cities and their doings in my Civic Reporting class. I am also an adjunct professor in the School of Journalism at the University of B.C., where I work with students on basic research, interviewing, story-development and writing skills.

I have an honours bachelor’s degree in French literature from UBC and a master’s in communications from SFU. I’ve won several journalism awards and fellowships over the years, including a three-month Asia Pacific Foundation fellowship that allowed me to live in China for three months in 1990 and has influenced my coverage of Chinese issues in Vancouver ever since.

I also won a one-year fellowship from the Atkinson Foundation in 1999 that allowed me to study homelessness and affordable-housing options around the word. My work was published in the Toronto Star and can still be accessed through the Atkinson Foundation’s website.