Language is most powerful when it clearly communicates. And vibrant, focused, clear language is a passion I pursue in my own writing. 

 

I am most stimulated by telling the stories of people—artists, authors, entrepreneurs and others—in an engaging way, drawing in the audience with a picture painted in words. I create these stories by relaxing my subjects and gaining their trust, letting them know I understand how compelling their story is and listening closely to what they tell me. I give their voice a microphone.

 

I’ve created award-winning print and digital stories for numerous entities: Edible Houston, Hotshot Media, Houston PetTalk, I Start Wondering, Lifestyles & Homes Magazine and more. And I’ve helped others shine through my editing skills, shaping the clarity and structure of their e-books and articles.

 

For this website, I’ve curated several stories from my 100-plus feature stories, reports and economic analyses, including:

 

• Preserving our stories for posterity: artist and writer Carolyn Dahl on Archiving

• Bari Jenks speaks a language of unity through her artwork

• Ana Villaronga has created two community museums through public-private partnerships

• Stray dog Della found a home thanks to concerned neighborhood residents

• High school students gain an understanding of children’s lives in the Holocaust

• The Houston restaurant industry stepped up to feed the community during and after Hurricane Harvey

 

In my professional communications career, I also have created content for entities such as marketing companies, municipalities, institutions of higher education, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. 

 

For me, expression has a broad scope:

• I teach private writing classes. 

• I created and presented a corporate storytelling training program nationally. 

• As a public speaker, I placed in the top three of several Toastmaster humorous speech contests, proving that I’m not the only one who thinks I’m funny.

• I find wordplay to be engaging. On long drives, a close friend and I like to create puns to amuse ourselves. The result is Full Groan Puns, which matches artwork to the puns.

 

Call me a word geek. Believe me, I’ll take it as a compliment.