Professional/Personal Overview
A full-time freelancer specializing in national and defense issues, I have reported the spectrum from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to the halls of the Pentagon and the Capitol. My work has been published in a variety of magazines and websites, including Reader's Digest, US News & World Report, Newsweek.com, GlobalPost, National Geographic News, and Defense Technology International. I have also worked as a stringer for USA Today's foreign desk.
Work Info
Expertise
Book Author
2 Years
Editor
5 Years
Reporter
11 Years
Specialty
Environment & Nature
1 Year
War & Conflicts
4 Years
Transportation
5 Years
Total Media Industry Experience
10 Years
Media Client List (# assignments
last 2 yrs)
National Geographic News (11+), USA Today (6-10), Defense Technology International Magazine (3-5), Military.com (3-5), Newsweek.com (1-2), Washington Post (1-2)
Corporate Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)
School Nutrition Association (6-10), Phoenix Focus Magazine - Univ of Phoenix (3-5)
Other Work History
I have held staff writing positions at the Marine Corps Times and Aviation Daily.
Computer Skills
Word, Photoshop, Excel
Technical Skills
Digital photography editing, blogging software (Wordpress, etc)
Equipment
Laptop; digital recorder; digital SLR camera; satellite phone; personal protective equipment, including ceramic plate bulletproof vest, ballistic helmet and glasses; basic survival gear such as GPS, water purifier
Foreign Language Skills
Basic Spanish
References
Available upon request
Awards
2006 Joan Cook Award Journalism and Women Symposium; 2005 Vivian Award National Press Club
Associations
Affiliations in recent years have included the National Press Club, Washington, D.C.; The Frontline Club, London; Reporters Without Borders
Other
I am currently writing a book about how my combat reporting experiences in Iraq allowed me to reengage with my father, who served as a drafted combat infantryman in Vietnam.
Freelancer Availability
I freelance full-time. I live near Greenville-Spartenburg, SC. I am willing to travel anywhere. I have a driver's license. I have access to a car.
Work Samples
Defense
(US News & World Report , 12/22/2008)
Karen Driscoll might seem the unlikeliest of lobbyists to cruise the halls of Congress. Indeed, the Marine Corps wife and mother with three young children, one of whom has autism, didn't envision herself hustling down the marbled corridors in a power suit. Yet, on a recent fall day, Driscoll is mane
(Military.com , 4/22/2008)
The Marine Corps is bulking up its attack helicopter fleet, increasing by 25 percent the number of helicopters it intends to include in a beleaguered H-1 upgrade program that had for years flirted with cancellation.
(Military.com , 4/17/2008)
Marines deployed to Afghanistan this spring will, in part, hold the cards on determining whether more are sent in after them, according to the Corps' top officer.
(Newsweek.com , 4/11/2008)
Just back from a visit to China, the head of the U.S. Marine Corps sees opportunity for closer ties between the two nations' armed forces.
Environmental Coverage
(National Geographic News , 4/29/2008)
A catastrophic volcanic eruption in Peru in 1600 caused short-term cooling that sent societies around the world reeling, new research suggests.
(National Geographic News , 4/1/2008)
Ancient climate change cornered the woolly mammoth into a shrinking habitat, but humans delivered the final blow by hunting the species into extinction, a new study suggests.
(National Geographic News , 10/30/2006)
Recent illegal toxic waste dumping in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has led to at least ten deaths and renewed calls from environmentalists for tighter controls over international waste shipments.
Iraq Coverage
(Washington Post , 6/22/2008)
To those who experience it firsthand, the war in Iraq is a fickle master. It can bestow glory, wisdom, adventure, even romance, but more often it wields the power to take. That much is obvious from the latest crop of journalistic memoirs. If there's an "I-went-to-Iraq-now-here's-my-book" threshold,
(USA Today , 6/19/2006)
HADITHA, Iraq — Marines taking a refresher course in “Core Warrior Values” say they understand the need to go back to basics in response to allegations that fellow Marines killed 24 civilians in November in this town 125 miles northwest of Baghdad.
(USA Today , 4/21/2006)
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari agreed Thursday to step aside as the nominee for a second term in office, a move that could break a months-long political standoff.
(USA Today , 4/20/2006)
BAGHDAD — Handwriting experts confirmed Saddam Hussein’s signature on documents linking him to a bloody government reprisal on a Shiite village where Saddam’s motorcade was attacked in 1982.
General News
(AOL News , 3/9/2010)
Growing older just might not be so bad after all, according to a new study that finds healthy men and women are having more and better quality sex as they go into their golden years.
(AOL News , 3/4/2010)
The Obama administration took further steps this week to kill the controversial high-level radioactive waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain despite the president’s push to expand nuclear power in the U.S. and strong opposition from at least two states.
(AOL News , 2/23/2010)
South Carolina would turn into a cashless state — as in banning all federal
currency as legal tender in favor of using
silver and gold coins — if one state lawmaker
has his way.
(AOL News , 2/17/2010)
They don't make Toyotas. But they make the parts that make Toyotas run. And in
cities like Elkhart, Ind., and Orangeburg, S.C., factory workers and other employees could be
severely affected by the Japanese automaker's massive recalls of about 8 million passenger
vehicles.
International/Foreign Policy
(ForeignPolicy.com , 4/7/2011)
U.S. President Barack Obama, in his March 28 speech on Libya, justified the international intervention by raising the specter of "a massacre" in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, which he said "would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world." It isn't the first tim
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June 4, 2013 | San Francisco
