Writing
My first dugout canoe! On assignment in rural Nicaragua for WaterAid America.
A generalist, I can help you to tell your unique story with wit, authority, intelligence and style – whether it’s a PR pitch, branded content, blog posts, ghostwriting, an op-ed or other material.
I’m an easygoing collaborator, able to quickly and confidently jump into, and effectively contribute to, a wide range of projects and issues. A former three-time daily newspaper reporter, I know a deadline is never a suggestion and that accuracy matters more than ever in an age of ChatGPT and AI. Need a quick turnaround? I’ve reported and written more than 2,500 well-written words within days when needed.
My work has appeared in more than 70 trade, consumer and custom publications worldwide, in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, England and France.
Find me at: learntowritebetter@gmail.com
Profiles
After 17 Years, Jazz Band Hot Sardines Is Still Evolving
The Globe and Mail
Very few Canadian bands can sell out a prestigious venue like Carnegie Hall in days, nine months before their concert date.
This year, the Hot Sardines – fronted by Elizabeth Bougerol, their half-French, half-Canadian vocalist – did.
How Middle Schoolers Built ‘Pizza Sail’ (Hint: Without Their Phones)
The New York Times
An after-school program invites students to build small sailboats from scratch, then test them out on the water.
The Brave and the Innovative: Future Builder Outi Ervasti
Neste
As the global race to replace fossil fuels gains urgency, Outi Ervasti is building a team of visionaries to find the solutions that will help us all win. A road warrior, a ferocious optimist, and a manager who wants to ‘help people shine like jewels’, she and her team just might change the future as we know it.
New York Rangers Head Coach David Quinn on Hockey and Hemophilia
HemAware
Quinn hung up his skates at 20 because of his bleeding disorder—but he still made it to the NHL.
Science
Schools Work to Build a Pathway to STEM
ASME
STEM education has been a national priority for more than a decade, but have we moved the needle?
Engineers Tackle Water Shortages
ASME
Two billion people struggle to find safe, clean drinking water daily. It’s an urgent problem, and scientists are developing a wide variety of technologies to solve it.
Creativity and Curiosity in Research
Lustgarten Foundation
Two billion people struggle to find safe, clean drinking water daily. It’s an urgent problem, and scientists are developing a wide variety of technologies to solve it.
Business/Personal Finance
Widowed Before 40 and Coping With the Financial Consequences
The New York Times
People who suddenly lose a spouse while young can feel unprepared for what their future looks like.
How Do You Deal With a Windfall in Your 20s?
The New York Times
A sudden influx of cash can offer a sense of relief for a young person. But for those grieving a loss or dealing with large sums of money for the first time, it can also feel overwhelming.
Scaling New Heights: The Women Ironworkers of New York
Financial Times
The steel column stands in a cavernous training hall in Astoria, Queens, at 35 feet high.
Choosing to Live Abroad in Retirement
The New York Times
IT began with a spontaneous kiss from a man she had met only a few days earlier, in a restaurant in Vence, a small town in the South of France. “It was shocking to me,” recalled Patrice Smith, when the handsome Dutch computer engineer so impetuously bussed her.
Yes, the IRS will negotiate, but you probably won’t like the outcome
Quartz
It happened to us on October 14, 2013 when our accountant called and asked us what the hell we had done. We owed the IRS an additional $6,000. Due immediately.
Seven Tips For Great Customer Experience -- From The Bronx
Forbes
I'd never made the journey, all of 30 minutes from my home by car, to a street I'd heard about for years. For anyone living near New York City, Arthur Avenue, in the Bronx, is legendary for...
How to Ease The Expense Of a Divorce
The New York Times
If there is an easy point of agreement in the emotional upheaval of divorce, it is that endless legal battles can break the bank.
A Prenup Saved Me When My Husband Left. One Could Save You, Too.
The New York Times
They have long been considered unromantic, but prenuptial agreements are being embraced by some couples as a way to protect themselves on their own terms.
For Entrepreneurs, a Tough Moment: The Pivot
The New York Times
It’s the moment many entrepreneurs hit eventually, no matter how much funding they have raised and burned through, no matter how many 100-hour weeks they and their teams have put in, no matter how brilliant their initial idea. It’s time to pivot — and it’s the moment many entrepreneurs resist.
Where the Artists Are the Superheroes
The New York Times
When Tchae Measroch leaves work, his hands usually bear a fresh cut or bruise. He works, often on his knees, in a small room crowded with an odd mix of items: a dried-grass hula skirt, a car door, baseball bats, swords and knives of varying length...
O.K., Google, Take a Deep Breath
The New York Times
Maybe it's no surprise that a yellow-brick road winds through the Googleplex. Step onto Google's campus here - with its indoor treehouse, volleyball court, apiaries, heated toilet seats and, yes, Oz-style road - and you might think you've just sailed over the rainbow...
Design
How To Speak ‘Antique’: 33 Need-To-Know Terms When on the Hunt
ZZ Driggs
As you explore the world of furniture and decor across time and space, it’s crucial to know the lingua franca of antiques and vintage furnishings.
Now on Tour: Shoes and Sketches by Manolo Blahnik
The New York Times
The footwear designer talks about the traveling exhibition “The Art of Shoes,” where he goes for inspiration and his favorite creations.
The History Hidden in the Walls
The New York Times
A scorched red corset. Half of a dog’s skull. A 19th-century clay pipe. A mastodon. Once you start digging — whether excavating long-populated urban land for a commercial project or tearing down the walls of a house — you never know what you’ll find.
JWM Magazine
Remember the opening shot from "Downton Abbey": a pair of gloved hands carefully measuring every setting's placement? While few of us have a full complement...
Approachable Antiques: What They Are, Where to Find Them & What to Look For
ZZ Driggs
It was a black marble egg, tucked into a silver teacup, found in Edinburgh during my 12th summer, spent there with a friend. I bought it for my mother, my first antique purchase.
House Beautiful
A Jersey Shore house ravaged by Hurricane Sandy is reborn with nautical flair and shipshape élan, thanks to hometown boy Joe Lucas.
A Woman's Touch, Still a Rarity in Car Design
The New York Times
For Monika Zych and Sandy McGill, becoming car designers for BMW started with Matchbox toy cars, racing the tiny replicas around the living room as little girls...
New York's Best Spaces for Modern Industrial Design
HGTV
Today's urban designers are loving this rough, raw, down-to-earth aesthetic. Peek inside New York's hottest rustic, modern industrial restaurants, hotels and stores.
Health
Physician on a Mission: Prescribing Timely FDA Reforms to Ensure Patient Safety
Arnold Ventures
In Byzantine world of FDA regulation, a physician is on a mission to push for patient safety and transparency.
When an Estranged Relative Dies, Some Face Grief, Regret and Relief
The New York Times
Winner of honorable mention for the 2023 ASJA award: The Arlenes: Articles That Make a Difference
Some have regrets over unfinished business. For others, the end of an unhappy and complicated relationship just comes as a relief.
The Importance of Medical Touch
The New York Times
It can show gentleness and compassion or carelessness and incompetence.
In a Hospital Stay, No Time to Rest
The New York Times
Grand Central Terminal may be synonymous with noise and haste. But as I recently discovered, it can be a lot quieter than a hospital bed.
The Dog Days Can Be Deadly for Dogs
The New York Times
When my friend’s husband recently headed out for a five-mile run with his 2-year-old Border terrier, Angus, with plenty of water and a collapsible bowl in tow, he never expected he’d end up at an animal hospital.
Researcher Puts Nursing Home Ownership Under the Microscope
Arnold Ventures
As multiple segments of the industry consolidate, private equity is playing an ever larger and more influential role, often with little regulatory oversight.
What Medicare for All Really Looks Like
The American Prospect
The Canadian system, also called Medicare, guarantees coverage to every resident north of the U.S. border.
Livestrong
He'd always been a suit-and-tie guy, working 25 years for Citibank in Chicago. And he'd just landed a $50 million account for them when Dwight Nawls was called into a meeting — and was out of a job. It was 2009, a tough year for a mid-life African American man to be unemployed. He decided to go into business on his own, but "things fell apart." By December 2016, he was homeless, rebounded, and in August 2017 was homeless again.
Physical Therapy and the Camaraderie of Healing
The New York Times
I first had physical therapy at 27, after I slipped on an icy Montreal sidewalk and tore the ligaments in my left ankle. I had it again at 42 and 43, after surgery on my right and left knees, and most recently I’ve had it on both shoulders.
Travel
The Challenge of Taming Air Turbulence
The New York Times
He had taken a few hard hits as a quarterback for the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League. But when his American Airlines flight on Jan. 25 from Miami to Milan, a Boeing 767 carrying 192 passengers, blew sideways, Jordan Case thought that was it.
Culture
‘Bridgerton’ Is Just the Beginning
The New York Times
In this time of our confinement, fans of period clothing are having a lot of fun on social media.
The New York Times
Radio programming from around the world is available on the internet or through apps.
Backstage and Now the Boss: "The Only Girl in the Building"
The New York Times
Jennifer Diaz first stepped onto the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House at 11, as an extra in “I Pagliacci” and “La Bohème.” For the next three years, it became her second home, as she regularly visited her father, who is still the Met’s night crew manager after more than three decades.
Personal Essays
Friendship Is a Universal Language
Next Avenue
French and Spanish may have initially brought us together, but growing affection binds us deeper each week.
My Retail Job, Crazy as It Is, Keeps Me Sane
The New York Times
A freelance writer took a sales job at a clothing store out of desperation. Two years later, she's still there.
USA Today
I was the perfect target. Like Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Irish teen who recently committed suicide after being bullied by her new classmates in South Hadley, Mass., I arrived as a nervous outsider. Mine was a middle-class Toronto high school; like hers, most of my new classmates had attended grade school and middle school together.
Why Retail Workers (Like Me) Drive Customer Experience
Harvard Business Review
Elbows out, adrenaline pumping, they line up by the thousands, aquiver with the thrill of the chase. Their focus is absolute, their aim impeccable, their arms powerful...
In a world that feels chaotic and futile, microphilanthropy offers a bit of hope
The Globe and Mail
We live in an era where the world’s richest people move through their lives in ways the rest of us can barely imagine: owning multiple homes, flying on private jets, wearing enormous jewels. It’s an era closer to the Gilded Age as any previous.
Aging app FaceApp is giving people a warped idea of what getting older truly feels like
NBC News
The way people are reacting to their FaceApp photos — with shock, and even disgust — says a lot about how we think about the inevitable human process.
Over the Years, It Feels Right at Home
The New York Times
I moved into my apartment, in a six-story red-brick building in Tarrytown, N.Y., with the intention of moving up and out within a few years. I was half-right — after a brief, miserable marriage, my husband left and I stayed behind.
Marie Claire
I love to get jewelry for my birthday. I treasure the pearl-and-diamond earrings I once received as a gift from Jose, my husband. But this year, he offered no small velvet box. Instead, my birthday gift was an eight-day, silent, Buddhist vegetarian retreat. I was more than a little shocked...
