Owner recruited me to contribute stories covering local events, arts, business and regional travel topics for a community blog serving a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit. The Urbane Life audience consists of Urbane building residents, many of them first-time home owners or renters, as well as residents in the larger metropolitan Detroit area. Duties included promoting Urbane Life articles using social media and uploading my work in a Word Press environment.
Created Midwest Guest, a regional travel blog focusing on trips and topics of interest to Midwest residents and travelers. Midwest Guest showcases my travel writing and photography in a TypePad environment. Publishing my own blog enabled me to learn Web editing, publishing and social media promotional skills.
Wrote special section features and business stories on freelance assignment basis for daily newspaper. Duties included developing story subjects within a broad topic and taking digital photographs to accompany articles.
Wrote press releases and provided publicity consultation for local dinner theater. StarBrite's earned media included reviews and feature stories in The Detroit News, The Daily Tribune, The Royal Oak Review and Between the Lines.
Wrote advertorial features for upscale Detroit monthly magazine, Hour Detroit, and Hour Media publications like Detroit Home. Duties included scheduling and interviewing ad clients for advertorial features ranging from 100-word briefs to two-page features and securing client copy approvals.
Wrote "Business Beat", "Business Briefs" and "On the Street" columns. Covered other business news and feature stories on freelance assignment for five suburban Detroit weekly newspapers (Royal Oak Mirror, Clawson Mirror, Ferndale/Pleasant Ridge Mirror, Berkley/Huntington Woods Mirror and Birmingham Mirror). Wrote advance and follow up stories about community and school events. Occasional proofreading and copyediting.
Wrote articles for monthly Chamber publication. Duties included interviewing business people for articles about Chamber events, services and short business profiles of new Chamber members.
Edited monthly Chamber publication. Duties included news gathering, writing articles, editing submitted material, proofreading and selecting typesetting and printing vendors.
Filler/short article contest-Honorable Mention for two articles-"State of Graceland" (Memphis visit) and "Mr. Hockey's Autograph" (Gordie Howe)
Short feature article contest-Honorable Mention for "Walk Through History One Step at a Time" (feature about Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum)
Filler/short article contest-Honorable Mention for two articles-"Road Ends to Fame in Anonymity for Silent Film Star" (Florence Lawrence) and "Pack Your (Plastic) Bags" (travel how-to)
Wrote anchor article for 16-page Cruise Woodward section. The section captured First Place in the contest's Special Section category for Class A weeklies.