Adrienne Samuels Gibbs
Chicago, IL USA
15 Years Experience
Professional Experience
I'm a Pulitzer-nominated reporter, writer and editor who can cover a wide variety of subjects. My best pieces range from breaking news to cultural trend pieces to long-form narratives to short, comedic listicles. I've covered pop culture, finance, hurricanes, immigration, books, movies, fine art, racial issues and government. I'm frequently tapped to write magazine cover stories, and as such I've interviewed and wrangled everyone from Taraji P. Henson to Meryl Streep. I've been a staffer at The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Ebony, St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald. I'm the former, Interim ME of Ebony. I've flown with the Navy Blue Angels, visited with Muammar Gaddafi's top aides (and heard him speak a month before his death) while on a United Nations fellowship, and penned a weekly Sun-Times column on Chicago's cultural scene and, separately, its violence. I love telling the story.
Expertise
- Writer 15 Years
- Editor 12 Years
- Social Media 5 Years
Specialty
- Arts & Humanities 10 Years
- Entertainment 11 Years
- Lifestyle 12 Years
Industries
- Magazine - Large Consumer/National magazines 10 Years
- Newspaper - National 15 Years
- Association publication 2 Years
Media Client List (# Assignments Last 2 Yrs)
- NBC News(6-10)
- Fit Pregnancy(1-2)
- Takepart.com(3-5)
- Chicago magazine(3-5)
- Ebony/Jet(10+)
Corporate Client List (# Assignments Last 2 Yrs)
- Ghostwriting for private author(1-2)
- Book editing for Howard University's Vera Katz(1-2)
- National Association of Black Engineers(3-5)
Other work history
The Chicago Sun-Times; Ebony magazine; The Boston Globe; The Miami Herald; The St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times; The San Francisco Examiner;
Technical skills
Vimeo, Audacity, InDesign, InCopy
Foreign Language Skills
Spanish
Computer skills
Word, Excel, all Mac OS, Wordpress, all social media programs/apps
Equipment
audio recorder, laptop
References
Ask me.
Awards
Pulitzer nomination, 7 NABJ Salute to Excellence awards.
Associations
NABJ, AWJ, JAWS
Writing Samples
Breaking News
General
Chiraq: A short history of a catchy name
(Chicago magazine 6/10/2015)
I do a lot of writing on the music scene here in Chicago and happened to notice that King Louie's "Chi-Raq" phrase - something he made up years ago - had finally gone mainstream. Here, I produce a short timeline of the word that's on everybody's lips.
Mary Mary cover story
(Ebony 6/1/2013)
I negotiated this cover, negotiated an exclusive and got the magazine on the celeb's accompanying reality show. Then? I wrote the story. All in a day's work. This issue became one of the year's top sellers.