Writing samples

I know they’re in here somewhere … gimme a few minutes.

After CNN, I worked on video and other social media verification, finding the story, the source, the image, the video from the cacophony of Twitter, Facebook and the like. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

All of that work is behind a firewall, for clients only. But since leaving there, I’ve been writing features. Here’s the most recent, for Smoky Mountain Living magazine. There’s more coming, but they’ve not yet been published.

• It’s hard to say goodbye

Here’s a couple of actual news stories from my days at CNN:

• Bernie Wilson of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes fame obituary
• George W. Bush goes for some marine conservation
• Galveston, 1900
• Police shooting suspect may have been white supremacist
• Mir’s return brings back Skylab memories
• Letter from shooting suspect reveals paranoia
• Seismic activity in country’s center sparks debate (I got tagged all over the internet for talking about “the big one,” as if I didn’t know it’s not really real — but my premise was that a lot of people were talking about it, and the story was about New Madrid anyway)
• Peace prospects uncertain as Israel looks to new elections
• Asphalt dreams (unfortunately, this is a very old story on CNN.com, and the excellent images are now gone
• Miles from nowhere, close to the heart (same with this one)

Here’s three feature stories from my time as staff writer for a weekly newspaper in the early-1990s. They’re in pdf format. Enjoy.

• Postcards from Camp (about the tribulations of operating a lesbian camp in very rural Mississippi)
• Common Bond (two lesbians survive a massive flood in rural Georgia with the help of their neighbors)
• Gay in Hutsville (a gay homeless community. I share a byline on this story, but in reality I wrote it — Liz gathered the information)