This is the thrilling tale of how I became a girl reporter.
I am an American, Chicago-suburban born. When I was a young and impressionable undergraduate at Northwestern University, I decided to be a great novelist and make my way in the world by working in publishing, as so many former English majors seemed to do in novels. Post-graduation, I discovered that I had no talent for administrative work and did not like working in cubicles. Also, I wasn’t getting much writing done. So I moved to Florida to go to graduate school at Florida Atlantic University, where I taught freshman composition, learned to throw around then-fashionable academic terms like “praxis,” and wrote a novel. While I waited for the world to discover the novel and its greatness, I worked first at a Starbucks and then at a Barnes & Noble, where I met lots of odd and interesting people and started asking them questions about themselves. Then I wrote their stories down in my journal. This, it slowly occurred to me, was actually journalism and far more fun than tracking the police scanner, as reporters did at my college paper. It also occurred to me that it would be helpful to have more formal training if I wanted to make journalism my career. So I spent an informative and exhausting year at the Columbia Journalism School learning how to ask better questions. I regret that I have never gone out on assignment in chic duck-themed accessories, though I have sometimes gotten to wear safety goggles and a hard hat.
I have been doing journalism for fun and profit ever since (there’s been far more fun than profit), first at the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, then at the Reader in Chicago, and then The Takeout and Eater Chicago in the digital universe. My work has won local and national awards and been considered “notable” by Best American Non-Required Reading and Best American Essays. Now I’m freelance. Let’s work together!
