Just Steph

So before I begin trying to keep up with my new blogging post goals, let me introduce myself.

I'm Steph. I'm 37 (which dates me - as I mentioned in the previous post I started in newspaper pre-Internet). In fact, I helped launch the first Web site at my first full-time newspaper job, a daily in Central Illinois, the Herald & Review. That was a big BIG deal back then and while I take great pride in that, the Web site sucked, well, compared to what it is now. But it worked. From there I warmed up, moving south to Gannett's Greenville News in S.C., and then warmed up even more when I was recruited to work at the Orlando Sentinel. My newspaper trifecta. But I also should count the Charlotte Observer , where I worked part of college, learned a hell of a lot and probably would have stayed had I not gotten so desperate for those things called Benefits.

Today, I'm a freelance writer (85%) and editor (15%). Editor after editor tried to steer me into editing. But writing is where my heart is. I married an editor so I can just live vicariously through him as needed. And speaking of the editor hubby, if I were to be perfectly honest, he, or our marriage rather, is a big reason I left the Sentinel. I had a hot beat at the time, social services - lots of crazy things happening at the time, such as women getting raped in group homes, that was helping land my stories on A1. My hubby was a front-page decision-maker and had to keep recusing himself. Some newsroom relationships work, some don't (but you can visit Doyle Mania to see what great perks came of choosing the relationship over the newsroom). Now, I am watching former co-workers get the boot, one after the other, due to budget cuts, and wondering ...

So here I am, trying to see if I can make a living at this freelance writing biz. I write about it all - and I credit newspapers for the fact that I can. I had the education beat, political beats, cops beat, I was even an outdoors writer. Mainly, though, I've covered medicine just about everywhere I've been, and I can't get enough of it. So although my recently published book was about true crimes in Florida, I have a secret yearning to find my way back into an OR - just without me on the operating table. Yesterday I interviewed a doctor, the inventor and pioneer of ultrasound guided cryosurgery for both the prostate and the liver. How nerdy am I that I wanted his autograph?

When it comes down to it, though, my favorite writing topic is pretty simple: people. I love watching them, their every move. I used to watch my parents, follow them around, when I was a kid. Write down what they were doing in a special notebook and then hide it. Like I was capturing their secret inner spirits. And when it comes to people, the more down-and-out the better. Sick people, old people, mentally ill people, poor people. That used to be the joke in the newsroom. "Oh, what's wrong with them?" Send them to Steph. Which used to piss me off. What do you mean, what's wrong with them? I love, crave giving a voice to the voiceless. The quieter their voice, the more newsprint I hope I can give them. I get it from my great-grandmother, no doubt, the only white gal on a South Dakota Indian reservation. But I'll save her for another post.