Introduction

I am a 27 year old writer/editor with primary experience in lifestyle magazines. I graduated Butler University in 2003 with a B.A. in History. Following graduation, I completed an internship with Indy Men's Magazine in Indianapolis, a publication that was launched in 2002, holding the distinction as the first regional men's interest magazine in the country. I was employed at the magazine for three years, where I served in various capacity and positions. I left my final position as Senior Editor in September 2006 to teach English in the Czech Republic. I am currently based in Brooklyn, NY.

I composed this site to highlight my abilities as both a writer capable of working in a variety of styles and forms and as an editor with considerable creativity.

My professional resume can be viewed here.

Indy Men's Magazine

All examples of my work on this site were published in Indy Men's Magazine, a regional glossy publication with a monthly circulation of 50,000 copies that was in operation from 2002 to 2007. Though the magazine's competition were other Indianapolis-focused publications, IMM maintained an editorial mission more in line with national men's lifestyle magazines, priding itself on high quality writing on a variety of topics while never running an issue with a cover line reading, "Perfect Abs in 10 Days!" Contributors included Esquire fiction editor Tom Chiarella, science fiction author William F. Nolan, actor/comedian Paul F. Tompkins and Pulitzer Prize-nominated novelist Michael Kun. The magazine also distanced itself from similar "city mags" by employing considerable irreverence in its pages and featuring honest, in-depth interviews with Indiana-related personalities ranging from Wolfgang Puck to Karl Malden to Larry Bird.

Notes: The style manual of the publication was a very casual variation of the Associated Press guide. The prose was very conversational in all departments of the magazine, and ease of read often took precedence over following a specific rule set. Also, I have included links to page scans where the article's design aids the context of the writing. Where it is irrelevant, only the text is linked.

Front of book

Short-form service articles are often the most-read sections of any magazine. This certainly was the case with Indy Men's Magazine, which featured product recommendations, local event previews, men's health issues, recipes, golf tips, and auto advice, all in the first 20 pages of the book. These pieces provided useful consumer information while maintaining our unique, light-hearted voice. These are multiple examples of the departments to which I regularly contributed.

"IMM Recommends" was a new product review section, focusing primarily on media, personal electronics, and men's grooming and fashion products.

"Doc-in-a-Box" was a medical advice section presented in a Q&A format with a local physician or specialist.

"Stuff to Do" was a preview of several of the month's notable local events.

"Men at Work" was a collection of short-form profiles of Indianapolis-area men with interesting professions.

Fake Ads

in each issue, we placed an advertisement for a completely fabricated product or service among our real ads. Then we challenged our readers to spot the fake ad; submit a correct guess and be entered to win a prize from one of our actual advertisers. This was a very popular feature of the magazine which also satisfied our advertisers, as each reader scanned every single real advertisement in the publication to find the fake one. Here are two fake ads that I created with the art department.

In a short period of time, Indianapolis saw almost a dozen nightclubs sprout up catering to young affluence. Each of these clubs featured some sort of ultra-exclusive private room or bar for those who want to be seen not being seen. This fake nightclub is clearly the most exclusive nightclub possible. But get there early, the place fills up quick.

The following fake ad is a parody of the universe of scents that the Yankee Candle Company has produced. Our company's line of products are just a bit more mood-specific.

Feature Concepts

The magazine's feature well commonly consisted of two pieces and a long-form interview. Topics covered in the two "wild-card" features were typically elaborations of the themes of our departments (health, food, sports, fashion, arts, business, product reviews, etc.). These pieces were often a collaboration of the entire editorial department.

One example of this was a multi-piece package regarding the 2004 race for Indiana governor. Local issues up for debate, short biographies, brief interviews with both candidates, etc. I was assigned a trivia piece on former governors. Though it's a reads as a breezy "fun facts" collection, the piece was actually the result of in-depth research on the official biographies of each governor, viewable only at the state's historical center. The result is a light-hearted, but thoroughly-researched, "did you know?" collection of Indiana political trivia.

Another collaborative effort was a heavily-researched and extremely difficult sports quiz I co-composed for our annual Indianapolis Colts preview. The idea for such an impossible test was taken from the movie Diner, where a Batimore man makes his bride-to-be take and pass an excruciating exam on his beloved Baltimore Colts before he will marry her. Since the Indianapolis franchise is a relocation of this same team, we wrote our own impossible test for our readers, and also administered it to various local sportswriters, talk show hosts and former team members.

Many local publications run features on the Indiana State Fair during the month of August. Often, they are the same ideas and interviews rehashed and repackaged. This idea, however, had not been done before in an Indianapolis publication, and was subsequently copied over the next few years. I asked four notable Indianapolis chefs and one reputable bartender to invent their own gourmet reinterpretations of the most popular state fair foods, such as corn dogs and lemon shake-ups. The resulting feature was a great success and showcased the magazine's ability to produce an attractive, informative, and entertaining feature on a landmark event in a completely new way. This feature was solely my project from conception to production.

Another feature that I conceived and produced expanded on our monthly product review section, "IMM Recommends." For a July issue, I put together a two-page review of various fireworks. Though the humorous feature's primary focus was to entertain, it offered product information as well. The irreverent, snarky prose and engaging design of the piece is very evocative of the overall mission of the magazine.
IMM Recommends: Fireworks Edition (Image)
IMM Recommends: Fireworks Edition (text)

Travel Stories

Like our food reviews, we allowed ample room in our travel section for our writers to do what they do best. We always sought to run a piece detailing a unique, but monetarily and logistically realistic, travel experience. Too many destination articles read like the itinerary of a press junket followed by the specific travel agent contact information and a climate summary. The first travel essay relates a trip I took to pay my respects to the King of Memphis. The second piece was part of a package where three writers separately visited the same vacation spots that were featured on The Brady Bunch.
Southern Comfort
A Very Brady Summer: The Grand Canyon

Page 96

Similar to GQ's "Open Letter" or Mad Magazine's "Fold-In", "Page 96" was a humorous and topical way to close out each issue of the magazine. The section allowed for the greatest creative freedom as there were no requirements for content or format. The only rule was that it had to make our readers laugh.

For an all-food issue we produced, my idea for this section was a parody of that family restaurant staple, the puzzle-laden child's menu. Because the level of difficulty on the games tends to hover on the lower end of the eight year old intellect spectrum, I thought it would be funny to see an incredibly difficult puzzle collection for gifted children.

Internet solicitation from online "universities" promising discount degrees and college correspondence courses on the cheap is a familiar sight to anyone with an email address. For the last page of a March issue where the cover feature was an interview with NCAA president Myles Brand, I composed such an advertisement from "Phoennix University", regarding the fundamentally absurd formation of a varsity basketball program at the online school.

The Indiana State Fair is one of the largest state fairs in the country and is a major point of interest and conversation in the month of August. Implicit with any large fair is a sizable midway, constructed and administrated by those oft-ridiculed American gypsies known as carnies. But bolting together the Tilt-a-whirl or guessing a fairgoer's physical dimensions must require some sort of knowledge and training, or at very least, a short competency exam.

Themed restaurants were constantly a source of both disdain and hilarity at IMM's office. I once pointed out that every Restaurant corporation must employ someone who has the responsibility of finding theme-appropriate designations for the men and women signs on the restrooms doors. This observation led me to create a simple matching game of such signs for several area restaurants.

Angie's List is a national company headquartered in Indianapolis. Angie Hicks founded the outfit, which details customer reviews of a myriad of service professionals, soon after graduating college. But maybe she caught the consumer advocacy bug at a very young age.

Music Reviews/Previews

Popular music is a familiar subject to me, as both an active consumer of new music as well as an instrumentalist in various groups for over a decade. As a result, the editor-in-chief assigned to me a great majority of the music coverage in the magazine. The bulk of this coverage fell in two categories: concert previews and album reviews. Here is an example of a succinct review and three medium-length previews.
Ray LaMontagne review
Ryan Adams preview
George Gershwin preview
Margot and The Nuclear So and So's preview

Food/Drink

All city magazines must contain some commentary on the local food scene. However, since Indianapolis does not have a particularly notable cuisine culture, it can be difficult for its publications to present something exciting and unique. In every issue, we struggled to bring the reader entertainment as well as information about area restaurants. This allowed for a variety of unconventional reviews, whether it was a variation in form (a lunch review written as a short "one-act" play) or an unusual subject (the take-out refrigerator at Target, sandwiches at the American Legion). Traditional reviews were published as well. Here are several examples of the variety of styles.
Eddie's Corner Cafe
The Blue Cactus
Long's Donuts
Ripple Bagel & Deli


In addition to food reviews, the magazine also published a package entitled "Top Shelf," which featured long-form essays related to all things potable, product reviews, and short interviews and drink recipes from area bartenders.
Top Shelf - The Martini
Top Shelf - Shula's Steakhouse
Liquor Reviews