Editorials for Newspapers and Blogs

A Home of Reading

Although I’ve always been a naturally curious person, my twin love for reading and writing was encouraged in a home where I was exposed to reading as an everyday, normalised activity. My father bought at least three newspapers a day. He subscribed to several other newspapers, such as our local small city newspaper, The Daily Record (Wooster, Ohio) and the larger nearby city newspaper, Akron Beacon Journal. When USA Today appeared in 1984 as the country’s first colour newspaper that was also transmitted nationwide by satellite, my father began to bring that home everyday, too.

Developing an Interest in Journalism

Around age eight, I began to read The Mini Page, a weekly Saturday insert for kids in the Daily Record. This reading habit gradually transitioned to daily newspaper reading by the time I turned 12. Because my father was usually at work, I would arrive home from school, make a packet of ramen noodles for dinner, and eat the noodles while reading the daily newspaper. I was a voracious reader and didn’t know any different, so this routine was not unusual or lonely to me.

This daily newspaper reading gradually led to my interest in journalism as a possible career. At age 14, I wrote to The Daily Record’s managing editor, Melody Snure, and offered to write a column for the newspaper. She wrote an encouraging note back, advising me to keep reading and writing. A few years later, I wrote her again to express my interest in writing a column, and this time, she asked me to become the newspaper’s monthly youth columnist.

While I high school and beyond, I wrote monthly editorials and occasional features articles for The Daily Record. This training ground gave me experience in developing article ideas, interviewing (I was terrified at first), taking photographs, writing in editorial and news format, and meeting deadlines. After being very active in campus journalism at Oberlin College in the early 1990s, I pursued a journalism M.A. at the University of Missouri, worked at various publications in the U.S. and Britain, and wrote travel features from Australia in the late 1990s.

Though my main writing activities took a different turn into academic writing in more recent years, I still occasionally write editorials for various newspapers, blogs, and newsletters. With my natural curiosity, I am always looking for a good editorial idea.

Newspaper Articles

A Trip Outback –
Author explores persecution of Jews –
Dad of the Year –
Discovering Tasmania –
Rich history serves Castle Tea Room well –
The Apollo: Oberlin’s chameleonic cinema –
Vietnam relations get mixed reviews –