For 30 years I’ve been a writer. Mostly crafting features stories for a variety of newspapers and magazines. But I’ve also penned personal essays, written for radio, and published on a variety of websites. Below, find an ongoing list of links to my work.
The Roanoker is the premier lifestyle magazine for Southwest Virginia and the longest continuously published city magazine in the state. For them, I’ve written profiles of public figures, pieces about children’s mental health, stories about the hemp industry and creative nonprofits. I’ve published quick reads and cover stories. Here are a few favorites:
The Roanoke Times publishes a top-notch lifestyle magazine four times a year. For SWVA Living, I’ve profiled apple growers and caterers, covered trends in local writers and tasting rooms, and written about preserving seeds and chefs-in-training. The pieces below were standouts.
Some of my best work for SWVA Living has been profiles of local artists — muralists, painters, potters, and these amazing creators:
I’ve also written for The Local Palate, Life Outside and Valley Life.
In addition to my magazine work, I’ve written essays for the popular online site Grown and Flown. And created a column on eating local for the Edible Blue Ridge publication. I’ve been featured in podcasts, written travel stories and published poems.
In 2014 and 2015, I penned profiles, trend pieces and personal essays as the Food Writer for The Roanoke Times. Some stories sure to make you hungry:
Start the New Year Right, With Tofu
Farms: Where your food comes from
Strawberries, strawberries and more strawberries
Before that, I was a staff writer for The (Raleigh) News & Observer, where I crafted award-winning feature stories, wrote trend pieces for Page 1, created magazine-style news features and chronicled a yearlong series following a family’s move from Arizona to the Raleigh-Durham metro area.
Early in my career (1993-1998), I worked for The Christian Science Monitor, a Boston-based newspaper renowned for its international reporting and winner of seven Pulitzer Prizes. I reported from Atlanta, North Carolina, New York, Los Angeles and New England, covering breaking news stories and writing news features, trend pieces, art and food stories, personal essays and book reviews.
I have also written radio essays on commuting by bike, embracing snow days and raising chickens for NPR affiliate Radio IQ.
I published a personal essay with the Durham, N.C.-based entertainment and cultural magazine, Indy Week.
Years ago, I earned a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I also majored in English and wrote my Honors Thesis in Creative Writing under the wonderful guidance of novelist and short story writer Jill McCorkle. During that time, I wrote award-winning stories and was the Features Editor for the best college newspaper around, The Daily Tar Heel.