Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Two Opinion Columns I've Written

I've recently gotten a new job in the northern suburbs of Metro Atlanta, working for a chain of weekly newspapers.  As part of my job responsibilities, I will be writing a column for my paper twice a month.

Here's the first column, written about how I interviewed Fulton County Commissioner Liz Hausmann and took the opportunity to examine a whole of Western fiction at a local library.

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-02-03-185706.114126-sub-Interview-leads-to-book-find-at-Spruill-Oaks-Library.html

Here's the second column, which I posted online today and will be published in print this week.  It's about Sunday alcohol sales in Georgia and why local communities should have the chance to vote on allowing them.

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-02-15-185882.114126-sub-This-is-a-shock-I-agree-with-Nathan-Deal.html

I'm pleased with this one, since it's gotten 26 Facebook recommendations in a few hours and has been tweeted five times (I've only tweeted it once, so that means four people like it enough to pass it along).

Especially spiffy is that I'm allowed to put my blog link at the end of each column.  I don't think the first column attracted many readers here, but the second one has attracted eight already and it's only been a few hours.

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the new job!

    I don't follow Georgia local politics very closely (because I'm not from Georgia and all...), but I think you make some good points in the Sunday alcohol sales article.

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  2. Thanks for the comment and the congratulations.

    Most opponents of Sunday alcohol sales are conservative Christians (there're also liquor-store owners, but I don't think they're numerous compared to devout church folk), so I figured I would engage them on their own ground.

    They'd be more likely to listen to commentary on the Wedding at Cana and the history of Baptists being persecuted than inveighing about the dastardly religious types stealing people's freedoms.

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  3. I have a big stack of newspapers and magazines in my office. Johns Creek Herald, Johns Creek Neighbor, The County Line, mostly. I finally got to your 2/3/11 column in the Herald about the post-apocalyptic steampunk Western you're trying to write. I decided to skip over to your blog and comment on that alone. As a fan of the post-apocalyptic and steampunk (but not really Western) literary forms, I think if you can pull it off, it'd be a popular read for that cross-niche selection of fans of both (or all three). Good luck and I look forward to reading your columns. Just one question--your face shot had "Reporter" under it but your byline had "editor" in it. Whatda?

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  4. Given how genre-bending the story is, if there needs to be a one-word description of it, I'll call it "adventure." The second book in the planned series features the hero wandering around by himself for an extended period through harsh terrain, so that works literally too. :)

    About my precise title, it might be a good idea to clarify that. Most of my actual work is reporting, but I also decide where things go on the printed page and upload things to the web-site.

    Thanks for your comment. I think you're the first commenter brought here by my tag at the end of my opinion columns.

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