About

From a small town to the big city

I grew up in an Iowa town of maybe 600 people, across the road from a cornfield. Baseball was a passion; I hung the numbers on the scoreboard for out townball team and later kept statistics as the team traveled around the state for night games, when the players were off work.

Eventually I put my love of sports to work as a writer and photographer for the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa and later for the Chicago Tribune, where for one season I wrote a column on baseball statistics. I also wrote the monthly Cubs report for STATS, Inc. when it was just getting off the ground.

I also design sports pages for the Tribune, leading to my interest in digital media. Learning from graphic designers at the newspaper, I began to master digital programs such as Quark xPress, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

My life changed when I began teaching editing at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where I taught editing for nearly 10 years, first as an editing lab instructor under Buck Ryan, then as an associate professor.

For 23 years, I taught at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. I started the first web design class at the school in 2000 and taught just about everything: editing, photojournalism, magazine writing, opinion writing, publication design, digital media and media ethics.

Now I’m here to help you polish your content, whether it be writing, photography or design. Let me know how I can help.