Carolyn Knapp - Profile

I have been a "stringer" for several southwest Michigan daily and weekly papers for several years and like to say I've written about nearly every topic you can imagine - from murder trials to beauty pageants and many others in between. I imagine the features I've written number in the 1,000s or so.

The most fun I think I ever had as a journalist was while I was on staff at a local daily and assigned to write the "color" story surrounding presidential candidate George Bush's visit to the area in 2000. My daughter was playing clarinet in the high school band that greeted him, and I had a reporter's view of the speech, rather dull, sitting next to MSNBC reporter Ashley Banfield, who is now on Court TV. Besides interviewing a Dutch news crew covering the event, I also had the opportunity to interview the national press corps that travelled with Bush, which included his Austin press secretary Scott McLellan. Ashley was very helpful in introducing me to other travelling reporters like herself, and I found it ironic that the reporters were hesitant to be interviewed. However, being "forever a bridesmaid and never the bride" myself, I completely understood!

From the editorial, I crossed over to the "other side" of the writing business when I took the job of marketing writer for a local community college. Writing copy for the college president, putting my words in his mouth, was quite a strange situation to get used to, as it would have been grounds for dismissal in my former career as a reporter.

I left the college after 3 years to start my own business with my oldest daughter Amy, a graphic designer. Pooling our talents, we became Writedesign Communications. You can check out our Web site, which she really needs to update, but as they say "the cobbler's children have no shoes!" Our Web address is www.wdcommunications.biz

I'm currently doing a lot of writing for a major health system in southwest Michigan - it shouldn't be difficult to figure out which one since we are still a fairly small community. I am classified as a free lancer but have an office in their building, which makes me a quasi employee w/o benefits. Kind of a strange situation to tell you the truth!

I have been married to Larry, a computer nerd, for 39 years and we have 4 children - Abby, a college sophomore; Megan, a college senior; Alan, who works in DC for a Texas congressman; and Amy, whom I've mentioned. We also have 3 grandchildren - Madison, 2; Grace, 4; and Erich, 6.

I love doing crossword puzzles in ink, reading (when I get the chance,) preferably historical fiction; working on my ever-evolving autobiographic novel; and dabbling in paranormal and spiritual studies. I'm a bit psychic, which makes me curious about the whole time continuum conundrum.

I would appreciate another venue for my writing, so hope Suite 101 gives me more opportunities to write about things that interest me, and get paid for it; although I'm still not sure how the process works.

Thanks for listnin'

Carol