The reason I got into journalism in the first place was the idea of starting conversations. The first bylined thing I wrote was in high school, about my experience registering voters. The rest of the day at school, people were talking about it – to me, to each other. I got home and we were talking about it.
I kept going with it because there are things I didn’t know yet, things that other people don’t know. Maybe we should know some of those things, right? So I spent 17 years telling stories at the Star-News in Wilmington, N.C., and at Trib Total Media in Pittsburgh, Pa. I became an editor and helped writers figure what we wanted people to know. I was also a columnist, and started some really interesting conversations that way. I moved to Florida and became a metro editor at The Ledger. Then I quit journalism.
Well, I quit the newspaper business. It turns out that you don’t just stop telling stories and being curious about things. So I still tell stories, start conversations. You can find my freelance work in Belt magazine, Ubitennis.com (oh, I happen to love tennis, by the way. Don’t start the conversation unless you’re willing to take it to the bitter end) and most recently, Shondaland.