Journalism

For my first freelance magazine assignment, I jumped into the ocean 16 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida, on a dare. The year was 1997, and I was on assignment for Sports Illustrated Women to profile the U.S. record holder for the free dive.

We’d conducted the interview the day before, so I was just “along for the ride” during the photo shoot where an underwater sports photographer would capture the action. As the team egged me on to jump in, I took some comfort in the fact that they had shown me spearfishing videos the previous day, and that they could “handle” whatever we might find. So I made the plunge—not bad for a kid who was famously afraid to take a bath after seeing the movie Jaws in the ‘70s (cut a kid a break, I was 7!).

It would be the beginning of an adventure journalism career. Since then, I’ve ridden in the back of a pickup for hours on a bumpy cliffside Moroccan desert road. I’ve burned leeches off my legs in an Australian rainforest and camped in the Outback. I’ve rappelled down a cliff in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains during an 8-day Outward Bound experience. All in the name of a story.

My freelance assignments have not always been quite as dramatic, of course. Some of my favorite stories have been conducted at my desk. As a health and wellness journalist, I enjoy the variety of subject matters within my “beat.” One of the favorite parts of my job is speaking with interesting people, asking them questions, and watching the story start to form. Whether they be medical doctors, psychologists, exercise physiologists, nutritionists, or trainers, I adore talking to subject matter experts and telling their stories.

I feel my sweet spots in magazine journalism are first-person reported stories and profiles, whether of athletes or everyday people doing cool things. I channel my inner detective whenever I’m assigned a story in order to find all the nooks and crannies of a subject, and employ journalistic techniques to any assignment.

You’ll never hear me say that print is dead. Sure, it’s shifted since I started in this industry 30 years ago, but I am determined to soldier on within the print magazine world as long as there is one magazine on the stand, by gum.

In addition to national newsstand publications, I’m seeking opportunities with custom publishing and university publications. Let’s get to the bottom of your next story.