Bios, profiles and more for national convention program booklet and newspaper:

AARP's Life@50-Plus Event, October 2006

I spent a large chunk of late August through early October on editing and writing bios, profiles, session descriptions and introductions for the onsite daily newspaper and program booklet for this year's huge AARP convention - a total of 84 pieces in only a few weeks! These were really fun to do, but a real test of my ability to "write tight." Boiling down and rewriting originals of 1,000 to 7,000 words to fit the very tight limits imposed by the assignment - 100, 150 or 250 words per article! - and still saying anything substantive was a true challenge. It was almost painful to slash down the details about stellar individuals such as Bill Russell, Dan Rather, Raquel Welch, Ruby Dee, Carl Reiner, Terry Bradshaw and many more.

I learned a lot about some of these renowned people - a fun part of any assignment - and I was able to add a few current details and corrections from my own knowledge of current popular culture, so this was a rewarding project in many ways. Not least the generous praise and appreciation of the client!