About
I’ve been part of journalism since childhood – this fun photo of me (on the right in stripes, age 8) was part of a magazine story about kids cooking. We had been ordered to have a flour fight. Sanctioned mischief!
Born in Vancouver, raised in London, Toronto, Montreal and Cuernavaca, my goal from childhood was to become a journalist. I studied English at University of Toronto and began writing freelance for national magazines and newspapers at 20.
At 25, I was the youngest of 28 journalists from 19 nations chosen for a life-changing eight-month Paris-based fellowship that required four independent reporting trips across Europe. My favorite? Eight days in a truck from Perpignan to Istanbul–tout en francais! I later used my fluent French as a reporter for the Montreal Gazette and Spanish reporting for them in a multi-national team with WaterAid in Nicaragua.
I began my staff career as a reporter at The Globe and Mail and finished my newspaper adventures at the New York Daily News.
Where
I am Now
I now write frequently freelancefor The New York Times, winning up to 300,000 page views and 1,200 comments on my deeply engaging stories. I won a Canadian National Magazine Award for humor and a Hillman award nomination for my book about retail work, given for “journalism in the service of the common good.”
I mentor several early-career women staff journalists through Report for America and love helping younger writers gain confidence and grow their skills. We need brilliant, incisive journalism more than ever!
I live in Tarrytown, New York with my husband, Jose R. Lopez, a Pulitzer Prize winning photo editor and former New York Times White House Press Corps photographer.
A Royal Letter
It’s not every day you get an invitation to meet Queen Elizabeth aboard her yacht Britannia.
It came after I spent a grueling two weeks as a Globe and Mail reporter, one of an enormous international press corps, chasing Her Majesty from New Brunswick to Manitoba, the weary press traveling by yellow school bus or Lear jet. It was an unforgettable experience, with my stories making front page every day. And that was before cell phones and email!
My National Magazine Award was a huge thrill, awarded for humor for an essay about my divorce. Canada is a much smaller country in population than my adopted U.S., but has many skilled writers, editors and designers and much ferocious competition. I’ve since been a volunteer judge for the awards, reading in French and English, and so impressed, even in a time of industry contraction, by how much talent my native country produces.
