A new trail, and a path forward

Feature story for the Summer 2010 Memphis Crossroads magazine

Long-awaited greenline links city neighborhoods with parks - exactly the type of asset employers say they need to make Memphis more attractive for workers.

Memphis Crossroads Magazine

Three feature stories for the Winter 2010 issue of Memphis Crossroads Magazine.

How big should our family be?

Feature story for Memphis Parent magazine

June 2009

In the June issue of Memphis Parent, focusing on fathers, Father's Day and men's issues, I wrote a feature story on vasectomies as a birth control option. The piece answers questions men have about the procedure, the permanence, this option versus others, fears and includes personal stories.

The decision to have children is one of the most sacred and important decisions two people can make. The thinking process should include the consideration of your lives as adults and whether a child or children will fit into that life. You have to question your flexibility and willingness to turn that currently childless life of yours upside down. Finances, education, coming decades of hands-on care, indeed the whole future should be re-imagined with children in it. The responsibility of another life is an awesome one.

The decision to not have children, or any more children, is equally important. Are two children enough? Three? Is one all we have the time and love for? Determining the number of people you envision in your family is Step One in deciding to become voluntarily sterile. How to get that way is a whole other discussion ... (read more)

Out of the Shadows

Feature story for the May-August 2009 ArtsMemphis Magazine

I was asked to write the story of "Crowds in the Shadows," a photographic exhibit recalling the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile from 1973 to 1990. The exhibit is for the Museo de la Memoria in Santiago, Chile, but is due to be on display at the National Civil Rights Museum in May of 2009.

My piece tells the story of Marcia Scantlebury Elizalde, the director of the Museo de la Memoria, and a political prisoner under Pinochet. I interviewed Ms. Scantlebury with the aid of translator Juan Fuentes, who was instrumental, not just with the writing of this story, but understanding the climate of Chile at the time of the coup.

There is not a modern country whose civilized exterior doesn't shroud a grotesque history of uncivilized behavior between oppressor and oppressed. But if a country's people are its heart, and culture its soul, then its government and institutions should reflect its conscience. Chile's Museo de la Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights) will do just that ...

A Place Called Hope

Feature story for Memphis Parent magazine on the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Memphis

April 2009

Vincent Borello is a living testament to what the Boys & Girls Clubs can do for kids. As a product of the East Utica Boys Club in upstate New York, he grew up in a rough, inner-city neighborhood. He candidly admits, if it hadn’t been for his Boy’s club, “I’d probably be dead or in jail.”

Instead, he was given control of that club at age 17, becoming the youngest unit director in the organization’s history, and never looked back. “I could have been a doctor and saved lives, but not as many as I save here.”

As president and CEO, Borello speaks passionately about the Boys & Girls Clubs and doesn’t consider what he does as work. With the six clubs he oversees in Memphis, “we give kids as much choice and opportunity as possible,” says Borello.

The choices for these children are plentiful from day to day: Play pool or read? Basketball or help from a mentor? Air hockey or cooking class? Other opportunities lie within each choice, namely helping kids improve in mind, body, and character ... (read more)

West Tennessee Wine

Cover story for edible Memphis magazine.

Fall 2008