Portfolio:

My only ritual is to sit so close to the typewriter that my fingers touch the keys.
                                                                                                        -- Isaac Asimov

Copywriting Samples:

Creative Non-Fiction Samples:

Bagging the Rat

A faintly putrid odor delivered the first hint of something amiss, but I ignored the warning. Two days earlier my husband of six years had moved out of our house, taking the gun safe and power tools from the shed we called his “Macho Room.”

The next morning I swept out his old haunt. I filled the bare shelves with bags of lawn seed and rose food and hung my rakes and shovels on the wall. I hauled in bags of potting soil and lined up small clay pots on the workbench, a row of open-mouthed chicks eager for plantings.

I stood back and admired my new gardening shed. The excitement of fresh beginnings hung in the air. But what was that smell? I spotted the most likely suspect, a tank of noxious weed killer, and quickly smothered it in two layers of plastic, sealing the seams with duct tape. READ MORE...

The Sound of Laughter -  September 18, 2001

Ever since Tuesday’s tragedy it has seemed that we Americans let out a collective gasp of horror and are still holding our breaths in grim anticipation of our next move.

This weekend I finally switched off the television and sought reassurance outside that life was still beating with its old familiar rhythms. I walked through parks and shopping malls, finding families on picnics, wedding receptions being set up and couples chatting at sidewalk cafes. But a solemn hush pervaded each scene, lending an air of unreality as though we were all stand-ins appearing at the correct locations on each set, but not acting with the confidence or bravado of real characters.

We are all still reeling, free falling in a space somewhere between our old security and a collective future that remains at large, hidden and hard to grasp. READ MORE...

The Talisman

We were distant cousins until illness finally closed the gap. We were born the same year, Kate a few months later, but we grew up three states apart. I only saw Kate once as a child, during a sweltering Dallas summer, when my family came to visit from California. We were both eleven, with blond bobs, mini skirts and go-go boots. I slept in her room for a week, my brother with hers down the hall, and we became fast friends.  By the end of our stay, even her southern drawl did not sound so strange. READ MORE...

Life Drawing Class

It’s a foggy Tuesday morning, and one by one, students of various ages shuffle into the spacious studio, lugging large drawing boards. Paint-splattered easels stand in a large circle, facing a cushioned platform. We each select one and hoist our pads onto its track. With the concentration of an orchestra fine-tuning its instruments, we busily adjust our easels’ height and tilt. We unpack bundles of charcoal and stash the cloths and erasers we will need once the drawing begins. Quiet chatter fills the room, mixing with hushed anticipation.

I straddle a stool facing my easel, set at precisely the right height for my eye to glide from paper to platform. Other students stand waiting at their easels, feet wide apart.

Fiction:

Novel – A Slower Pace, chapter 1

Link coming soon...

Copyediting Sample:

Example of Heavy Copyedit using Track Changes: Download Word File

Note: This is an example of a Heavy Copyedit. The client sent me a rough draft of an article he was writing for a trade journal. He was concerned that both the title and the intro were slightly off target. I suggested a new title, rewrote the lede and queried him (see pink comments inserted in margin) about the consistency of various facts in the article. He then reviewed my comments, incorporated some of my changes and answered my queries, and returned the file to me. I then did a second and final round of revision.

For those of you not familiar with Word’s Track Changes, take a moment to interact with this document. Track changes has revolutionized editing, and is a boon to the editor and writer alike. When you open the file, you will see my edited marked-up version, with deletions in red and new wording in blue. These markings show because the file is in Final Showing Markup (View/ Toolbars/  Reviewing/ Final Showing Markup window). On the Reviewing toolbar, if you switch the far-left pane to Final, you can see how the document would look with all suggested revisions, making it much easier to read. None of the corrections will actually be incorporated into your final version, however, until you Accept or Reject (see buttons on toolbar) each change individually. Note: my navigation instructions are based on Word 2003.

Download Word File