March 20, 2009
A condensed version of this story was published in the East Oregonian newspaper.
…Sill, a self-taught newsreel cameraman who would earn a media-star reputation for getting exclusive footage and delivering it to theaters first, reached the largest audience. Such was the power of motion pictures, the new medium transforming the nation’s cultural landscape …
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March 1, 2009
This story won the 2005 fiction award in the graduate writing program at Portland State University.
Looking at him now I saw Cassius Clay in miniature. His hair was trimmed short and squared off flattop style. Dark, almond-shaped eyes widened a moment before he spoke, as if signaling to pay attention to whatever came next. His eyes never stopped moving, soaking up everything even as he talked.
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February 27, 2009
From the book Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo.
Cowboys disagreed about the women’s skills. Strickland’s husband Hugo, a champion at Pendleton and many other rodeos, said one roper had lobbied him to persuade Mabel to enter women-only exhibitions. ‘Hugh, durn it, we fellas got to stick together. We don’t come off good in the public’s eye with a woman beating the whey out of us . . .’
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February 27, 2009
From the book Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo.
None of the 15,000 people who crowded into the arena . . . knew they were about to watch a contest that’s still the centerpiece of Round-Up lore, or that they collectively would become a key character in the story’s dramatic conclusion. In the end, the crowd chose one champion, and the judges chose another.
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February 26, 2009
Written for The Oregonian newspaper and published Jan. 22, 2009.
This is a story about love, shopping locally and the power of the Internet. And burritos, too. It began in early December when a man learned that his mother’s Northeast neighborhood business, Broadway Books, faced financial problems more ominous than the struggles small independent booksellers typically see.
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February 25, 2009
Written for The Oregonian newspaper and published Feb. 28, 2008.
The blunt nose of a psychedelically painted hippie van is perched on a front porch . . . Its empty headlight sockets gawk at the street through falling snow. From a portrait in a window, a pensive teenage boy peers outside. Scrawled on the window above a “Do Not Disturb” sign is an ornate signature: Benjamin Alexander Clark.
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February 24, 2009
Written for The Oregonian newspaper and published May 8, 2008.
As the sun tries to burn through morning clouds, the business partners laugh while explaining their nicknames: Barrett is Moss and Bravin is Broc (short for Broccoli Whisperer). The laughter stops as they discuss what it will take to succeed. ‘There are long, long days ahead,’ Bravin says.
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February 22, 2009
This personal essay won the 2005 non-fiction award in the graduate writing program at Portland State University.
I set out to find Celilo Falls, or where it’s buried underwater. . . I wonder whether the river will reveal why the photograph tugs at me. I imagine myself, solemn, dipping my hands in the river and feeling the answer in water trickling through my fingers, like an Indian shaman divining unseen truth.
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February 1, 2009
A blog post awarded my prize for revealing what I didn’t know about myself way back when.
Looking back, I hope the story’s loftier themes seduced me, too: Benjamin’s ability to see the world differently than programmed, his willingness to defy the rules that defined adulthood, unafraid to confront the world with his peculiar and soft-spoken outrageousness.
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January 28, 2009
Different clients want different levels of editing, ranging from a light touch to wholesale revisions.
Here are two examples. The first illustrates basic copy editing that tightened, smoothed, and corrected the writer’s prose while preserving his style and voice. The second illustrates extensive editing that included included organizational changes and other rewriting.
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January 27, 2009
A look at my work in an unfamiliar medium: a sprawling museum space.
My job, in a sense, was providing the raw materials and textual story framework that collaborators highly skilled in exhibition work built upon in shaping a dramatic visual journey through time.
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