Writing and Editing
A variety of experiences have molded who I am as a writer and editor. I’ve written and edited web content, entertainment journalism, newsletter material, creative nonfiction (prose and poetry), music reviews, internal and external business documents, as well as curriculum and classroom documents. These experiences allow me to consider audience and purpose when working on a story. Above all, I take pride in the quality, clarity, and storytelling of my written work. Some of my work is presented chronologically below.
Quick Links
2019-2022 Microsoft Research content portfolio
Meta Open Source
I was most recently contracted with Meta Open Source as Lead Editor. Here are a few projects I worked on with various collaborators:
- Summer of Open Source: Moving Virtual Reality Forward
- Summer of Open Source: Building More Efficient AI with PyTorch
- Sapling: Source control that’s user-friendly and scalable
- Introducing Velox: An open source unified execution engine
- All Things Open: Working Together For A More Inclusive Open Source Community
Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research content samples portfolio
https://www.microsoft.com/research/
I was contracted as a content writer and editor for Microsoft Research for about three years. I wrote and edited blog posts, webinar and project pages, social media content, podcast content, and other odds and ends such as LinkedIn InMails and email campaigns. I worked with individual researchers, research teams, and creatives to deliver front-facing promotional and educational content to the technology community.
I started working with Microsoft Research in June 2019. Since then, I’ve contributed to:
- Over 100 blog posts
- Webinar registration pages
- Top-performing social copy
- Innovative multimedia storytelling on single technologies and overarching themes
- Conference collections
- Project page elements
My experience includes writing blog posts from scratch on niche topics, like quantum computing, and helping researchers hone their stories about AI, from chess to natural language. I’ve worked with teams on year-long series of posts that follow a technology’s development over time, and I’ve crafted impactful single moments that resonate. I have written and edited social media copy across multiple platforms.
As a collaborator, my work has included partnering with researchers, scientists, developers, graphic designers, writers, project managers, communications teams, vice presidents, program directors, and countless others in research labs and universities around the world.
Although much of my work has centered around reaching a specialized, technical audience, I have contributed work that highlights educational outreach and have recently started producing and editing podcast series that branch out beyond the traditional technology sector, like economics and productivity. Whether it’s the odd request for a limerick example for a Twitter contest or a LinkedIn InMail from the perspective of a subject matter expert, I’m up for taking on new challenges and expanding my writing and editing chops.
Honour Essentials
I wrote email newsletters and blog posts and created other social media content for Honour Essentials, a men’s lifestyle brand out of Minnesota.
Revival Records
http://revivalrecords.co/about.php
I wrote the about the store section of Revival Record’s website. Revival Records caters to a tight-knit community of people in a specialized collectables field: vinyl records. I wanted the written content to reflect the inviting personality of the owner, Billy, along with a narrative combining the concept of home. The audience gets the sense that the place goes beyond the traditional idea of a store.
Peer Validated
Peer Validated was an online music and culture blog. I was honored to write a number of stories and reviews for this publication. Doing work for Peer Validated was especially rewarding in that it was a collaboration between a number of creative individuals with different skill sets. Through writing for Peer Validated, I learned how to create a complete story from start to finish. Honing my interview skills, working with editors/photographers/artists, using content management systems, and learning how to shape a story to get what I was after are all things I learned while working on these pieces.
I am especially proud of the Wisconsin Built piece, as I was ultimately able to facilitate an additional interview and photo shoot with the group in coordination with our photographer at the time. I was given creative control over multiple aspects of that story, including helping to choose some of the photographs that were used.
Stories and Reviews for Peer Validated:
Personal/Professional Blogs
http://thehertzbeat.blogspot.com/
Over the years, I have found occasions where I would prefer to write in the purist form: for myself. These blog posts, though sporadic, show my love for the craft and ability to write and edit alongside other passions of mine.
A collection of original poetry.
While I was teaching, I regularly maintained content and assignments through this blog, a good example of my abilities in educational design.
Editing Philosophy and Markup Example
My background in editing stems from my teaching career. Having been a high school English teacher for a number of years, I learned how to give feedback to writers in a productive way that allows for improving the writing and the writer. During my career as a teacher, I taught a wide variety of students in classes ranging from Enriched English to 21st Century English to Grammar and Usage. In observing how individuals learn to write, I was able to hone my eye as I honed my writing and editing pen.
When I decided to leave my post as a teacher for new experiences, I took along a keen eye for both poor and excellent writing, a knowledge of grammar and linguistics, and a background in literature. In addition to these areas, I was also able to grow and apply new skill sets into units I developed for the classroom, including podcasting and basic web design elements.
Since leaving teaching in Wisconsin to pursue opportunities on the West Coast in 2014, I enrolled in the University of Washington’s editing certificate program in order to continue to improve and sharpen my editing skills. I continue to enjoy and value learning new skills beyond my college years. Not only has this course been effective in giving me a new perspective on editing, it has also given me a new perspective on how to craft and shape stories of all different kinds. This course has also given me important standard trade skills such as using markup features in Microsoft Word and knowledge of industry-standard style manuals, as demonstrated in the examples linked below. Both have been edited for anonymity and used with author permission.