In late January, I traveled to West Texas, to Terlingua, at the invitation of an innkeeper who offers space to writers and artists. As these things often do, the entire experience came together through a delicate mix of resolve and serendipity. A few weeks earlier I had been camping out at her coffeeshop, working after hours […]
On April 2, at the Power of Narrative Conference in Boston, I will deliver a talk on External and Internal Landscape as it has to do with narrative journalism. Landscapes contains ideas and writings from the last decade of wandering, confusion, and questioning and, at times, anguish. I became aware of the internal landscape in 2005 after I landed in […]
On February 18, 2016, I will be speaking at the The Media Consortium‘s annual conference. The panel, “What Do freelancers Want” will cover, fees, contracts and the delicate dance of the editor-writer relationship. If you are in Philadelphia, drop by. If you are an independent journalist and unable to attend, send over your thoughts and insights to […]
In Summer 2013, I came across a boy waving down passing cars for help along a remote country road in South Texas. He had no way of knowing it, but the boy was stranded in the middle of Brooks County, a large swath of ranch land that has become a cemetery for lost migrants. I picked […]
In Fall 2015, I returned to UT-Austin, my alma mater, as a visiting lecturer in the Radio-Television-Film department. I designed the audio documentary course to explore the overt and subtle role of the ‘I’ in media storytelling. In an era of the selfie, crafted visual images on Instagram and the Serial podcast, the Self is peddled […]
In looking back at 2015 I can’t help but think of three important tenets of journalism: bearing witness, telling the story and holding institutions and public officials accountable. Last year, Cosmo for Latinas commissioned me to write a piece about police brutality and Latinos. We were, after all, living in the time of #BlackLivesMatters in the wake […]
‘Hunting Humans’ Brings the Fringe to the Center The far ends of our colorful political spectrum rarely cause me much worry. I trust the armed militias reportedly roaming the U.S.-Mexico border and the convoy of flag-waving protesters from Murrieta, California that traveled to the Rio Grande Valley will keep their rightful place on the fringe […]
