Newspapers

The Solid Basis.

Link to my June 28, 2010 story for the New York Times:

My first news story was written during graduate school in Alaska, where I went in 1982 after four years in Los Angeles. It concerned the plight of Brownie the coyote-dog crossbreed. She was under a death sentence imposed by state wildlife officials. As a freelancer, I'd been writing book reviews for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, but my proposing this subject got the attention of the news editor, who ran the article on the front page. Brownie posed for a photo behind her kennel's chainlink gate. An uproar followed: "How could you kill that sweet dog?" Even after my wife, Susan, and I left Alaska, Brownie's fate was the subject of outraged letters to the editor.

Other Newspapers:

Salt Lake Tribune

Toledo Blade

Ann Arbor News

AnnArbor.com

Wall Street Journal

Booth News Service

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Click for my story in The Wall Street Journal.

Over a five-year span from 1989 to 1994, while living in the Lenawee County, Michigan, town of Clinton, I did loads of stories and photos for the Ann Arbor News; it was almost like being a regional bureau. Protests at the landfill. Celebrity interviews. Travel section copy. "Shop-owner retires after 60 years." All this work helped to cement my journalistic techniques and skills.