Portfolio

Editing is listed first. Click the links in this sentence to scroll to writing, inventing, or training.

Editing

Creating Issues

Below are links to covers of some of the Reader’s Digests that I produced. During each stint as an issue editor (ten weeks, three times a year), I acted essentially as the magazine’s editor-in-chief, leading a 120-person editorial staff. I selected, top-edited, and titled all the articles, fillers, and department items; managed the 20 staffers who edited the articles (this was my permanent assignment); integrated legal and fact-checkers’ research into the final copy; approved all copy edits; chose the lead article and ordered the table of contents; signed off on all artwork, layouts, and covers; helped the marketing team write titles and decide artwork for the newsstand; suggested and participated in PR campaigns; and monitored the results of our monthly reader poll.

• The July 1993 Reader’s Digest includes a masterful report on food irradiation titled “Good Food You Can’t Get,” medical essayist Richard Selzer’s tribute to his father, and three unusually strong service pieces: “What Every Woman Needs to Know About Estrogen,” “Dealing With a Difficult Boss,” and “Make Your Child a Leader.”
• The February 1995 Reader’s Digest features two exemplary action pieces, “Death Grip” and “Stalked by Phone.” It also presents Mary Roach’s hilarious and actionable “What I Learned From Dr. Clean” and the “Do You Know Your Heart Attack Risk?”—an interactive piece that calculates your odds of an attack.
• The December 1995 Reader’s Digest includes two major reports on moral issues: How Honest Are We? identifies the safest American city for losing a wallet, and “When TV Sold Out to Michael Jackson” reprints Maureen Orth’s Vanity Fair exposé on a supposedly no-holds-barred interview with the accused child molester.

Creating Articles

Here are a few of the hundreds of magazine articles written by freelance or staff writers under my direction. In some cases the idea originated with me; in others, with the author. In all cases I provided story advice, markups of early drafts, and other editorial support.

• America’s New Merchants of Death (Reader’s Digest, 4/93), published in all 48 editions and read in virtually every country, blew the whistle on American tobacco companies for promoting smoking among Third World children. Produced with George Polk Award-winning investigative reporter William Ecenbarger, the article generated thousands of letters asking the Clinton administration to stop helping tobacco companies open new markets abroad. (Directed.)
• The Body Quiz (Reader’s Digest, 4/94) is one of many pieces I produced with Dr. David Reuben, author of the record-setting bestseller Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. (Conceived and directed.)
• Night of the Bluebird (Reader’s Digest, 1/90) was an unusually effective Drama in Real Life®. It began as a rough draft by a small-town newspaper reporter who had never written a magazine article. (Directed.)
• The Reader’s Digest Home Eye Test (9/90), published in 17 languages, earned endorsements from two competing professional organizations, the American Optometric Association and the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Later, it triggered a testimonial from a reader whose life it saved by spotlighting signs of a brain tumor. Produced with freelance author Robert C. Yeager, the project won the American Public Health Association’s “Paper of the Year” award—a consumer-article first. (Conceived and directed.)
• So You Think You Want to Smoke (Reader’s Digest, 9/94) tells first-person stories of four people who wish they had never started. (Conceived and directed.)
• Who Needs a Seat Belt? (Reader’s Digest, 5/88), produced with Popular Science writer Rob Gannon, tells moment by moment what happens in a head-on collision if you aren’t wearing your seat belt. We later published a testimonial from a woman who attributed her family’s survival to having read and discussed the article before a neighborhood shopping trip. (Conceived and directed.)
• Should You Trust a Tail-Wagging Dog? (Reader’s Digest, 4/91) asked a canine psychologist for advice on a universal problem: reading a dog’s intentions. (One of the article’s many caveats: never smile at a dog you don’t know.) Written by freelancer Jane Vachon, the piece grew out of a misadventure I had with a neighbor’s dog. (Conceived and directed.)

Creating Departments

• The Verbal Edge was the first major new department to appear in Reader’s Digest in more than a decade.
• Duck Hunt is dedicated to exposing quackery and hype in the health industry.

Editing Articles

Here are some of the articles that I chose for publication in my issues of Reader’s Digest. Although other editors created them, I titled, blurbed, and top-edited them, as well as overseeing production of their artwork and layout. Each is selected to illustrate a different principle by which I work.

• Are We Running Out of Trees? (Reader’s Digest, 11/93) is a one-page pictograph that explodes a popular myth.
• The Boy With the Billion-Dollar Secret (Reader’s Digest, 12/95) represents one of my favorite Digest genres: the one-pager. This one bears a powerful lesson for young readers and their parents.
• The Curious Cook (Reader’s Digest, 1/93) is an excellent example of an article excerpted from a book. It also illustrates one thing that all great magazine articles have in common.
• Inside Butler School (Reader’s Digest, 11/93) not only fascinates, but also imparts useful information about entertaining. We reprinted it from Forbes.
• Just Call Me Mister (Reader’s Digest, 2/95, reprinted from The Financial Post), by former Presidential speechwriter David Frum, decries the growing practice of first-naming customers. It generated amens from thousands of readers.
• Easiest Way to Get Rich (Reader’s Digest, 4/94) is a pictograph for young readers dramatizing “the greatest mathematical discovery of all time—compound growth.”
• Seduced in the Supermarket (Reader’s Digest, 7/95, from the book Total Package) reveals the art and psychology behind bottles, boxes, cans, and other product packages. Besides choosing, editing, and titling the piece, I enriched it with a few additions—including the McDonald’s paragraph on page 97, which certified a popular legend.
• How Honest Are We? (Reader’s Digest, 12/95) placed “lost” wallets in various U.S. towns, with hidden cameras watching. America’s most honest city: Seattle.
• Tales a Table Could Tell (Reader’s Digest, 4/94) began as a rambling 6000-word piece in the New York Times Magazine. We asked our editors to reorganize it as a 200-year chronological narrative, climaxing with the table’s auction price. It was an issue favorite.

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Writing

I published my first article in a local newspaper when I was 14. It was about an upcoming solar eclipse. Although I intended to become an astronomer, I soon discovered that I enjoyed reading and writing about science more than doing it. As a writer, I eventually branched out into medicine, politics, business, crime, safety, drama, humor, and many other fields—as these examples show.

Magazine

• The Big Glass (Discover, 1989; reprinted in Reader’s Digest, 1990) is a condensed version of the inside story of the making of the Hubble Telescope mirror. Discover’s editor-in-chief judged it the most popular article the magazine had ever published.
• The Cold Facts About Ice Cream (Science 80, summer 1981) profiles a real-life Professor of Ice Cream and the technology behind America’s favorite dessert.

Web

Following are some of the hundreds of pieces I’ve written for DietPower’s website. I’ve also created many interactive features, some of them listed under “Inventing,” below.

• Is Your Weight Killing You? enumerates the health risks of obesity.
• “Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Days!” tells what science says about rapid weight loss.
• Getting Enough Vitamin E₁₀? illustrates the power of suspense in driving home a point.
• Beat Cancer the Barefoot Way exposes the producers of a famous TV infomercial who claim that Coral Calcium can cure almost any disease.
• Can These Slippers Make You Thin? tests one of the Web’s most outlandish weight-loss aids.
• It’s the Calories, Stupid! exposes fad diets for ignoring the deepest truth about weight loss.
• What the Heck is Saturated Fat? uses humor to explain a concept that everyone hears about but few understand.
• Swordfish, Please! examines the natural history and nutritional benefits of a tasty alternative to beefsteak.
• Give Me Liberty or Give Me a Stroke! urges federal regulation of salt in processed foods.
• The Explosive Nutrient We All Need covers the science and nutrition of potassium.
• Read This Article or I'll Eat This Donut! translates the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans from gobbledygook into plain English.
• Still Eating White Bread? reports on the amazing health benefits of whole grains.

Ghost

I’ve authored many pieces for famous signers. A ghost-writer’s authorship is usually kept confidential, but here are two exceptions:

• A Question of Duty (Reader’s Digest, 9/95), written for a dissident Chinese doctor, is a first-person account of government-sanctioned infanticide.
• Must We Have Nuclear Power? (Reader’s Digest, 8/90) was a signer for Frederick Seitz, then president of Rockefeller University and the American Philosophical Society, formerly president of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Inventing

One of my missions is to make computers act as “intelligent agents,” finding and delivering personalized information to their users. Three examples:

• DietPower is computer software that turns your PC into a private weight and nutrition “coach.” First released in 1992, the program has been sold on the Web since 1997. It has tens of thousands of users.
• Whose Body Do You Have? (patented, now in testing) identifies your famous Body Twin and reveals whether your weight is a health risk.
• The world’s first online eye exam (patented, under development) tests adults and children for visual acuity and signs of amblyopia (“lazy eye”), macular degeneration, and other sight-threatening ailments.

Training

As an editor, a college teacher, and a consultant to corporations, I’ve taught thousands of people how to make their writing more effective. Here’s one of my most useful tools:

• Defog That Memo! (Science 80, 1981) is a piece I wrote describing a simple formula for gauging your writing’s readability. Over the years, this piece has circulated among thousands of editors, writers, and executives.

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