Resume! Updated!

Ever seen a frog land flat on its face?

Fell in love with Colorado last month, and here is what I have to show for it.

Sometimes people ask me if interviewing and writing about cancer patients, which I've been doing for the University of Chicago, presents any emotional challenges. At first, yes. The idea of calling a 35-year-old woman and asking her to re-live the story of her bone cancer in extreme detail was daunting. In the six years I've been writing those stories, I've overcome any fears because these people are inspiring. They've seen the worst, but not a single one of them has let any uncertainties rule their lives. Here are some of my most recent stories:

Victor

Anna

Diana

Pamela

One of the reasons I love writing the Weiss blog is because the place is so forward-thinking. It's a small community hospital in a giant metropolis that wants to be more than a place people come when they're sick. Weiss administrators understand that staying healthy starts with education, so they started a farmers market, creating an outlet where they can teach people how to eat healthy. And they took the farmers market a step further, starting a rooftop garden and aviary to populate the market with fresh fruits and vegetables grown on the parking garage roof. Here's the story I wrote on the guy behind the garden, and one on the hospital's first farmers market.

Going to NYC for a minute.

Since March, I've been acting as Twitter curator for Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago. I post health tips, recipes, news, and links to blog posts I write for their website. I've met a lot of interesting people during this on-going project. Follow Weiss on twitter to see for yourself.

For my feature story in this month's Tails magazine, I interviewed Sharon Montrose, one of my all-time favorite photographers. Read the story here and then check out her work here. You can thank me later.

My blog celebrates its one year anniversary soon. They grow up so fast.

New story in my features & profiles section. I contributed this one to the first issue of a new national magazine called Positive. It's about Janet Messineo--the best fisherman and fish taxidermist on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Read about her life and work here. OF COURSE I'll keep you all posted on when the print issue comes out and where you can pick it up.

Pretty amazing...twenty years ago, a mother gave a portion of her liver to her 2 year old daughter. The surgery had never been done before in the U.S., and though people debated the surgeon's ethics (putting a healthy person's life in unnecessary danger to save another), his efforts gave that little girl another chance. I wrote about the girl, her mother, and where they are now for a University of Chicago cover story. I don't know all the feedback we've received, but last night I learned that one Walla Walla, Washingtonian "cried and cried" when she read the story. She was part of the original research team that started studying living donor liver transplants and never thought the science fiction that was her research would become a reality. Read an interview with the woman here.

Also, I wrote a story for Northwestern University about a couple who met and fell in love during medical school, and today are living the dream out in California. Too bad nobody wanted to pay for my flight out there.

I recently wrote a press release for Weiss Memorial Hospital on an allergist there who offers under-the-tongue allergy drops. Read it here. I might start on these myself, especially with all the cats in my life lately.

I've been writing some stories about (and taking some photos of) the people that make up Chicago's Weiss Hospital for the Weiss website, to help patients and visitors get to know their hospital better. Visit with a 97-year-old volunteer named Etta, or follow pet therapy dog Ranger as he comforts patients and physicians. And don't forget to check out the Wii party!

DEADLINE MET! I just finished a story about one of the best fishermen (and the best fish taxidermist) on Martha's Vineyard. “My focus is here on the Vineyard because I could never afford to go anywhere else," she told me. "I know the island really well. I put my 33 years of compulsive fishing into the Vineyard. It’s still my passion, still a mystery. It’s really part of my spirituality. It’s who I am now. It’s not even about fish." Until my story comes out early next year in Positive magazine, you can read more about Janet Messineo on her own website here.

In other news: I recently wrote a story for the University of Chicago on an Indiana man who donated 70 percent of his liver (which grew back in a month and was fully functional in three) to save his wife's life. Read it here.

BIG NEWS. Look for me at the White House this Wednesday, August 12th. Janet Rowley, whose biography I have spent the past two years writing, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. For context, the other awardees include Sandra Day O'Connor, Desmond Tutu, Stephen Hawking, Edward Kennedy, Sidney Poitier, and Harvey Milk.

Honestly, I am out of my mind right now.

OU's alumni magazine the Ohio Journalist recently featured my "personal brand." Read it: http://www.scripps.ohiou.edu:16080/oj/2009/grind/branding.html

I.
am.
tired.

I spent a 10-hour day down at the University of Chicago, helping them put together a mini newspaper and edit a magazine. It was nice to get out of the house, but I leave for New York SOON to visit some friends aaaand meet with a potential agent for the book that has been my life for the past two years. I want to put some of it up for all of you wonderful readers to read, but it's too soon. Too soon? Two years! I know, I know. Get over it.

ARE WE THERE YET?

Almost.

omg THOUSAND FIBERS meets tomorrow at Kitsch'n at 8 p.m. Go to there.

ABC ran a special last Friday night called Children of the Mountains about Appalachian families and what they're up against. I went to school in Appalachia for three years, and part of why I made that choice was because I wanted to go somewhere vastly different from where I'd grown up. My school was in Southeastern Ohio, about half an hour from the West Virginia border. Two miles down the street from my dorm freshman year, you could rent a trailer for $200/month. Ninety percent of kids at the local grade schools qualified for free lunches, and for some, that was the only meal they received in a day. Cancers and mercury poisonings and C8 contaminations from the power plants lining the Ohio River like dominoes were rampant. Problems abound, but the land is hands down some of the most beautiful this country has to offer. Watch the show, read and learn, visit.

The people of Appalachia have their challenges. As one researcher says in the ABC documentary, when our banks fail, when they fall apart, we fault the institutional structure and work to rehab it. But when people in rural Appalachia fail, live drug addicted in extreme poverty, we fault them for not picking themselves up and leave them. Why? The problem is infinitely bigger than a single group of people. So listen to their stories and value their lives. Visit their land and appreciate it for more than its economic offerings.

New goal: 1 short story/week. So far this has proven to be 1 short story/2 weeks...unless 3 shots of espresso are involved, in which case it's 1 short story/day.

THOUSAND FIBERS is going Ethiopian this week. Thursday, 8 p.m. I'd really enjoy it if you could be there. Yes. YOU.

Lovin' it.

We've switched things up at THOUSAND FIBERS. Instead of Wednesdays, we're meeting Thursdays, and tomorrow we gather at the amazing Shiroi Hana, which happens to be one of my top 5 favorite restaurants in this city. 8 p.m.---same time, different day.

HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Post-event, I went down to 826 to pick up Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country. It's a book of kids' letters to the new guy, including: "I wish I was your long lost son." --David Muñoz, 9, San Fran.

Also, I've posted new work here, so check it out. It's about a guy, Nate Smith, who digs up and then compares bird to dinosaur fossils at the Field Museum. “Paleontology gives us access to life’s history. We need that historic perspective,” he said.

Again again again: THOUSAND FIBERS meets Wednesday. Stephen's book about getting published IS getting published, so we have been reading the last half of it like mad dogs. We're also reading Josh's slightly disturbing psychological profiles of........I don't want to say for fear someone will steal this golden idea. Just know they're really good.

Danny's, 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Kablammo submissions are flying in like paper airplanes behind a substitute's back. It's really exciting stuff! We've pushed back the deadline to Feb. 1, so you've got a little extra time if you need it. But be smart.

Also, THOUSAND FIBERS meets tomorrow night at Handlebar, 8 p.m. I'd so love to see you there!

THOUSAND FIBERS meets tomorrow night! We're heading to Logan Square this time, to a homestyle Mexican joint called El Cid 2. My friends, I AM hungry.

Also, I submitted a story to the Chicago Reader's annual fiction issue. At least the deadline on this is short (issue out Dec. 24), so there's no waiting anywhere from 6 weeks to 12 years for a response.

In the meantime, I'm cleaning up the second half of the Rowley book, tentatively titled Paper Dolls. But I keep getting distracted by these lil ones and their stuffed pumpkins.

The readers board for Kablammo magazine met for the first time EVER last night, and let the opinions roll. It was FABulous, but we need more stuff to read. We're like a famished beast that can't get enough, and one of us is pregnant, thus even hungrier. So basically, send your stuff. We want it. We need it. Just do...it. Email Kablammo.

THOUSAND FIBERS meets in two days, and it's almost our one year anniversary. This week we're meeting at Suzanne's. Anniversary party details forthcoming....

p.s. Doesn't this post feel like a comic book dialogue bubble? That's because I'm reading Watchmen.

p.p.s. Kablammo is hot. Send your stuff. Now.

So. I've recently decided to act on a dream to start my own literary magazine. If you want to submit something--poetry, fiction, or non--send send send! Submission deadline is Jan. 1, 2009. You can email us at kablammomag@gmail.com. And if words aren't your thing, but images are...be in touch. We're looking for illustrators también.

Short week, but THOUSAND FIBERS pulls through with another meeting tomorrow night! Will you be there? We're meeting at Moody's Pub on the north side. 8 p.m. Good foods, good reads, good laughs, friendship bracelets.

Things look different around here, huh? What do you think? Do you like?

Meeting tonight: THOUSAND FIBERS. This one will take place at Charlie's Ale House, Navy Pier. We're discussing my story about a little girl's take on a funeral and Mary's story about Hot Diggity Dog Day at an old folks home run by a pack of nuns.

We've also got a potential literary magazine on the horizon, so there'll be talk of that, as well as Junot Diaz's Chicago visit in September to interview with this fancy little lady.

THOUSAND FIBERS meeting tonight on my back deck. 8 p.m. Let's pretend you don't know where I live but you really really want to come. What would you do? What would Neil Young do? He'd call and ask for directions. You should too.

I've FINISHED the first draft of the Rowleys' biography!!!! This is pretty big. Never did I think I'd have written a book by now, but here it is next to me--all 250 pages--ready to be packaged up and dropped off in Hyde Park for the subjects' perusal. Whoooo!

Hi! Long time no talk, eh? I've missed you. It's just that in those days before the 4th of July I'd mostly spent my mins thinking about America, and what's more American than America, really?

Also: I was maid of honor in my friend Katie's wedding.

And: I moved!

So now: THOUSAND FIBERS meets Wednesday, 8 p.m., at Pick Me Up Cafe. I've not been before, so I cannot say whether or not it's worthy of your most precious time. Additionally, the two gangstas whose words we're supposed to read haven't sent their stuff yet.

Tomorrow: I start Round 2 of photo classes at the SAIC. Way psyched. And by way, I mean veryveryvery.

THOUSAND FIBERS meets tomorrow, 8 p.m., at Volo to discuss something I've written and Suzanne's story regarding sexual intercourse in Prague. It'll be stellar. Be in touch if you want more dets (though there aren't really more to give).

OMG all sorts of updates! (well really just three)
Find them, like scavenger hunt.

THOUSAND FIBERS meets tomorrow. I don't know where yet. Sorry.

Addendum
We will be gathering at Kitsch'n in Roscoe Village. Up to bat (yes, bat, because it's baseball season and the Cubs are in town) are Stephen with the next installment of his novel and Rebecca, whose story I have only skimmed thus far, but I can tell you this: It has a lot of dialogue. Forty-six words in that last sentence. Tired.

Also, I submitted this story to this magazine. You'll hear about it if it gets in. If not, you'll forget about it.

THOUSAND FIBERS meets AGAIN tomorrow night at Weeds, 8 pm. We're discussing Bridget's story, which involves a hot air balloon and a fat baby, and Margaret's non-fiction essay about playing the piano when you'd really rather be dancing.

Full plate--currently working on stories about a fossil hunter, Charis Eng, a construction worker/champion roller skater from the south side of Chicago, and of course...the Rowleys.

Left some room for dessert, though. We've got this tomorrow night.

THOUSAND FIBERS writers' meeting tonight at Wilde Bar, 8 p.m.

isn't this just GREAT?!