Ever since I could remember I had a passion for stories. As a boy, I’d sit at the foot of my father’s bed and he would tell me stories about his childhood in an east-Texas sawmill town called Orange. My father owned a grocery store where he worked from daybreak until night. When he came home he told me stories about his past, and our childhoods became a kind of singularity. Dad, Great Grandma Ford, Grandma Susie, his Uncle Walter, and his Uncle Willie lived in a shack perched atop little columns of brick. Uncle Willie was the one responsible for feeding the family when my father was young. One of the neighbors was a chicken farmer who had a shotgun and a marksman’s eye for trespassers. Uncle Willie’s solution was to pull up one of the floorboards and lay down a hook with some bread on it. He would then take the hook and dangle it from beneath the house. Eventually one of the neighbor’s chickens would come under the shack where it would be snatched up. Then he’d put the floorboard down to cover his tracks. Uncle Willie called it “fishin’ for chickens.”
Like my father, I too am a storyteller — a multi-media journalist and a communications professional who believes in creating accurate, authentic narratives that resonate in the soul. I have followed the lives of survivors of the world’s worst conflicts for the past 17 years. I have more than 20 years experience working as a journalist. I have also worked as an editor, founder of online media and humanitarian information response specialist with a variety of NGOs and the United Nations. My work has appeared in such publications as Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Newsweek and other media organizations. My photography work has shown in such museums as the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago and at theCasa dell’Architettura, in Piazza Fanti in Rome. I’ve also shown my work at the Sala Docs gallery during the 56th Venice Biennale.
I enjoy long-form writing and I also produce speeches and editorials for everyone from the United Nations to celebrities. I believe each day of our lives should be a source of wonder and learning. I see it as my job to make sure that those around me feel the same.