I love that the eighth grade is doing a unit on journalism.
For about six years, my wife and I owned and operated a newspaper publishing company. We had several publications. We did most of the writing ourselves but also had freelancers and columnists. It was a great experience and when we think back to those days, we are proud of our work.
I’ve also done a lot of freelance writing for newspapers and magazines. (See, I really have had a million jobs over the years.) I’ve been published in the Boston Globe, was a regular contributor to the Providence Journal and other newspapers. I’ve written for magazines like Air & Space Smithsonian, Aviation History, Block Island Magazine, Sea Classics and others.
I enjoy writing and love the research that goes into it. Writing allowed me to explore topics that interested me, meet some really interesting people, and have some really cool experiences.
One of my articles, a piece about the USS Albacore (An experimental submarine designed and operated by the US Navy in the 1950’s and 1960’s) was cited in a NASA book about the history of wind tunnels. It’s obscure, but it’s cool to be mentioned in a NASA publication.
I wrote an article for the Boston Globe about the USS Massachusetts. The battleship Massachusetts fought in World War II and is now a museum ship in Fall River. I visited the ship and was given a top-to-bottom tour by the commander. The article focused on the efforts to get the state to pay for much-needed repairs.
Later, when the money had been approved and the ship was being repaired, I wrote another article about the restoration efforts. It was the coolest thing to walk underneath a huge battleship that was out of the water. That story was published in Sea Classics magazine.
For me, the best part about being a freelance writer, was choosing the topics I wanted to research and write about. It was fun, interesting and, best of all, I got paid to do it.
If you want to know more, ask me about the book that was written about me and my work in researching a sunken Nazi U-boat that was discovered in a place it should not have been.
