I’m a freelance writer, editor, and college/career coach with thirty years award-winning experience in reporting and writing and a decade of experience (and also awards) in the college and career coaching space.
I’ve been thinking and writing about education, politics, religion, health and parenting since the late 1980s, and I still do that on Substack at Swing for the Joy. I spent a decade in higher education helping college students hone their voices and find jobs, a service I still offer to high school juniors and seniors (college entrance essays and scholarship essays) and college students seeking work. I am better than AI because I don’t destroy the individual voice of my clients and I don’t make mistakes rife in the world of easy-but-wrong artificial intelligence.
My work has appeared in various newspapers and small magazines, most recently on the op-ed page of the Arizona Daily Star, for which I was awarded first place in General Commentary in the 2023 National Society of Newspaper Columnists contest. I wrote a family life column that ran for a dozen years in various outlets, including the Dallas Morning News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and sold more than 100 articles to numerous Catholic publications, including to The National Catholic Reporter and Saint Anthony Messenger. I was also an op-ed columnist for four different Catholic newspapers from 1992 to 2003.
When I worked as a full-time education reporter from 2007-2009, my primary focus was higher education, but I also covered the murder of a police officer, served as a dive-bomb reporter on the sports desk, helped write the obituary of the scion of a Mafia crime boss and got to interview Gloria Steinem for a piece on a local mathematician. My most recent work can be found here on Substack, and samples of my older work are below.
Op-ed commentary
This is what white privilege looks like
How we can do school despite COVID
There’s only one way to get the bishops to listen: Close your wallet
Five Tips for College Freshmen and Their Parents
What teachers REALLY do all summer
Personal Essays
In The Dark – Portland Magazine
Long-form reporting
Shooter calm during cross-town spree
Religion Reporting and commentary
‘Repair the World’ Jewish Federation Practices Tikun Olam (pg. 113)
Muslim basketball player at UA covers up in games
Dealing with the ‘December Dilemma’
Pope Francis’ challenge to the clergy
Responses to bin Laden’s death
Quran burning, un-Christian hate and un-Islamic violence
Feature Writing
Tucson teens perform hard work in Big Easy
Local touches for Congresswoman’s vows
UA dean helps rescue India sex workers
Obituary of Salvatore “Bill” Bonanno, son of legendary crime boss
Where are they now? Citizen employees a year after the closure
John Pepper: University of Arizona professor does ground-breaking research with cancer cell computer modeling in spite of stroke that destroyed nearly one-quarter of his brain.
Sheila Tobias: A non-mathematician, non-scientist, feminist Sheila Tobias spent her career raising awareness about, and fighting against, gender inequality in the teaching of math and science. Featuring interview with Gloria Steinem.
Higher Education Reporting
UA changes will affect women, minorities disproportionately
Helicopter parents now common at universities
Proposed stimulus could greatly aid UA, community colleges
New grads face tighter job market
Investigation: Basketball Coach Lute Olson
Is Olson getting special treatment?
Olson: AD told him to be mum about leave
Olson announces retirement; denial by UA president
Olson gets neither big payout or big penalty
Breaking News
Federal Charges in Giffords Shooting Cite Assassination Plan (contributing reporter; New York Times)
Regents reverse themselves overnight on tuition hike
Head of UA’s Bio5 Institute quits
Renee Wrote This 