About
Freelance Writer, Journalist, Web Editor, Photographer: Jeff Chappell
Okay, no more literary humor; I promise.
About me: I’m a Jeff of all trades. I’ve spent the better part of two decades working as a journalist in various guises, fashioning a writing career in both online and print media that spans both daily and weekly newspapers as well as high-tech trade publications. Fulltime, freelance, contract — I even toughed out a brief stint in public relations and marketing.
Name a subject, I’ve probably written about it at one time or another. Local government? Endangered species? Invasive species? Modern midwifery? Sports? Theater reviews? Rural homelessness? World’s largest collection of four-leaf clovers? Fortune 500 companies? Ice breaking maneuvers with the Coast Guard on the Great Lakes? Wall Street? Semiconductors? The Black Panthers? GPS? I can say yes to all.
The Post-Modern Phoenix
In the course of the first decade of this new century I’ve also been a casualty of the violent crash at the intersection of print journalism and the Internet. But like a high-tech phoenix I rose from the ashes (because I like to eat), and made the transition from crotchety, old-school journalism to the Brave (and scary copyeditor-less) New World online.
E-mail newsletters, websites, HTML, PHP, corporate content management systems, Drupal, WordPress, blogging and search engine optimization (SEO) — I’ve had to learn them all, to one degree or another and sometimes on the fly. These days as a freelance writer and Web editor I find myself more often concerned with the finer points of WordPress and PHP, as opposed to the finer points of grammar and journalism.
But such is life in the Information Age. And to think I let my college advisor talk me out of minoring in computer science. That minor would have served me better these days, coupled with my journalism degree, than the English minor I pursued (although I loved my college English classes). Notably, Michael Bugeja, said collegiate advisor, wrote this book about technology.
A tad ironic, that.
The Not-So-Innocent Abroad
But it is information technology that has enabled me to indulge my inner nomad: for most of that aforementioned first decade of the century I’ve been telecommuting. Since then I’ve lived in Northern California, West Virginia, Ohio, Thailand and Viet Nam. At the moment I’m working full time as a teacher of English as a second language (ESL), as a career in linguistics seems to be my little red sports car.
But I still sometimes work as a freelance writer and editor, putting my Web skills — namely WordPress and SEO — to work. A Wi-Fi-enabled laptop gives me the freedom and ability to work from just about anywhere in the world.
When I’m not working I often still don’t get away from the keyboard, because I’m usually writing on my personal blog or otherwise tinkering with my websites, editing photos, playing video games, or experimenting with 3D rendering.
When I actually do tear myself away from the keyboard, I’m often out shooting photos — photography is another passion — cycling, hiking, or just lounging in a coffee shop reading a book on my beloved Kindle.
Okay, But What’s All the Rest of This Stuff?
Well, here you’ll find many examples of my work — news writing, editorial writing, blogging, websites and photography. I even maintain a current blog here, as it pertains to my professional endeavors and related subjects that interest me, such as WordPress.
Why? I’m a journalism nerd; it’s kinda my thing. Except for when I left for six years to sling drinks and be a prototypical Generation X slacker. But that’s another story.
