This Is What Else I Do.

If you wish you could make a good living just writing about whiskey, so do I.

Like a lot of artists, if I may be so bold as to call myself that, I do several different things to get by. Most of them involve writing, but I also produce (video, audio) and consult. I have been a fulltime freelance writer for more than 20 years, primarily in marketing but not exclusively so.

I'm always looking for new business and since many people read this blog, I make a brief sales pitch from time to time. Here it is.

The main advantage to working with me is my depth of experience, in marketing and everything peripheral to it, with clients of every size. I am very good at translating corporate jargon into everyday English, for internal and external communications. I am also good at making technical material understandable to a non-technical audience. I’m a lawyer, which can come in handy for insurance, financial services, healthcare and other categories. In addition to writing (ads, brochures, scripts, speeches, features), I can help with strategy, planning, branding, you name it. Whatever it is, call me. I can help.

To reach me by email, click here. To download a one-page PDF with more information about my work, my clients, and how to contact me, click here. For my full CV, also in PDF format, click here. To get the free Adobe Reader, so you can read PDF files, go here.

UPDATE 4/16/22: Just in case someone stumbles across this post, I have retired from the above sort of work and have deactivated the links in the paragraph above. Thank you for your interest.

In Praise of the Post Office

The United States Postal Service gets a lot of flak, most of it deserved. I don't rise here to defend the post office, but to praise it despite its faults.

I run a small business, about as small as a business can get. It's just me and I run it out of my apartment. A lot of that business gets walked across the street and dropped into a blue metal box. Remarkably, almost everything I drop into that box gets to its destination on time and in mint condition. How is this possible?

I sometimes marvel.

My brother lived briefly in Ecuador. He basically told us not to try to mail anything to him there, the postal service was so unreliable. I remember even when he lived in Spain that he had a lot more problems with mail delivery than I ever have here, and Chicago is supposed to have problems, relative to the rest of the country.

I won't say I've never had mail go astray. I was even once the victim of an organized ring of mail thieves, working inside the post office. Even with that the percentage of all the mail sent by me or intended for me that hasn't arrived perfectly is very small. Sometimes, when the box is full of junk, I wish they were less efficient than they are.