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Writing Across Forms
Journalism, community reporting, personal essays, and ongoing writing about the things that matter — mental health, motherhood, and the human condition.
The writing runs through everything. A byline in the local paper. A column that ran for six years. A series that won an AP award. The thread connecting all of it: taking complex, often painful human experiences and making them something a reader could actually hold onto.
That instinct shows up in everything else I do.
First Bylines
Arizona Daily Sun · Fall 2001
Business Section Front · Arizona Daily Sun · September 30, 2001
Can't Find a Flag in Flag
My first Daily Sun byline, written in the weeks after September 11. An American flag in Flagstaff had become nearly impossible to find — Walmart's supply of 40 flags was gone in 10 minutes. The ones already flying were now waving from every yard, rope, and rooftop in town.
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Front Page · Arizona Daily Sun · November 4, 2001
Stocking Up Against Terror
Written weeks after 9/11, as emergency preparedness became newly urgent. From a young family with $2,000 in food storage to Gus and Ruth Palmer — Flagstaff residents since 1944, preparing since 1939 — and 30-year-old beans that "cooked right up and tasted great."
Read Article (PDF)Arizona AP Award · Health Reporting · 2006
"Straight Talk About Depression"
Arizona Daily Sun · Three-part series
"Every candid confession of this illness chips away at the stigma that has been wrongly attached to it."
— Reader letter, 2006
The Series
Arizona Daily Sun · Flagstaff, AZ
Part One
First-Person Journeys Beyond the Stigma
The piece that started it all — I wrote publicly about my own depression, received an outpouring of reader responses (50% from men), and knew the dialogue needed to continue. Multiple community members share their stories alongside clinical context and local resources.
Read Article (PDF)Part Two
Bipolar Disorder: Trying to Find the Emotional Middle Ground
A Flagstaff woman shares her experience of manic-depressive illness — the extreme lows, the dangerous highs, the long road toward treatment — alongside a psychiatrist's perspective on diagnosis and care.
Read Article (PDF)Part Three
When Despair Leads to Tragedy: Those Left Behind by Suicide
The most difficult installment — two survivors of suicide loss share their grief and their hard-won knowledge, alongside a community psychiatrist on the warning signs and what can be done.
Read Article (PDF)Doney Park Roundup — Community Reporting
Doney Park was the fastest-growing unincorporated community in Coconino County — and had no dedicated press coverage. I pitched the beat cold, built it from scratch, and filed weekly for years. The stories here are what came from taking a community seriously that others hadn't.
Arizona Daily Sun · 2004
Selected Pieces from the Beat
Arizona Daily Sun · Doney Park, AZ · 2004
Feature
Ostriches 'Good Pets for This Area'
A Doney Park pediatrician pursues his decade-long dream of raising ostriches — including a male named "Redneck," feathers handed out to neighborhood children, and birds that try to peck off his glasses while he works on the fence.
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Human Interest
Fire Victims Offer Heartfelt Thanks
After the Hawthorne family loses their home to a January fire, a community of strangers shows up — with furniture, storage units, a school fundraiser, and a check for $1,736. "I'm overwhelmed by the kindness and community support we've received, even from strangers."
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Environment & Civic
Rio de Flag: Fate of a Stream
Civic and environmental reporting on water rights and wildlife along a stream running through Doney Park — plus a discovery from the archives: the 1932 obituary of Ben Doney himself, a Civil War veteran who witnessed the Monitor vs. Merrimac.
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Feature · Special to the Arizona Daily Sun
4-H Animals Help Teens Cope With Loss, Learn Responsibility and Find Peace
Charlie Thomason is up at 5:30 a.m. every day for 13 goats, a steer named Gladiator, and a pig named Ham Her Up. Katie Treece's lamb Skittles might be Grand Champion. Both have spent seven years learning what 4-H really teaches: how to say goodbye. "I feel like I need animals to be who I am, my identity. So I can be at peace."
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Front Page · Arizona Daily Sun
The Deputy Is IN
A neighbor hears "a blast of dynamite" from her kitchen sink — and what begins as a firearm complaint becomes a portrait of the three community deputies serving Doney Park's 10,000+ residents, the feuds they mediate, and the speeding that keeps them busy.
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Civic Reporting
Alpine Ranchos: Determining Their Own Destiny
One neighbor's complaint about "unsightly yards" triggers 38 county citations — and unites 40 off-grid residents who want nothing more than to ride four-wheelers without bothering anyone. "The complaining resident has not attended."
Read Article (PDF)Strong Editorial Instincts. Any Subject.
Whether you need a feature, a series, or a narrative that does justice to a complicated story — I bring a journalist's eye and a writer's care to every assignment. Let's talk.
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