June 13, 2019• Just Me
Air pollution continues to kill people around the world....
April 18, 2019• Just Me
How has the Donora smog tragedy affected the way we live today?...
April 15, 2019• Just Me
We tred carefully through the brambles, weeds, and bushes devouring a hillside cemetery in the north end of Donora, Pa. We step from one...
March 22, 2019• Donora History, Donora Smog Event
One of the first stories I heard about the Donora smog of 1948 concerned the football game between the Donora Dragons and the Monongahela...
February 22, 2019• Just Me
I am delighted and honored to join this prestigious university press. Now, to write the book!...
January 22, 2019• Just Me
I am thrilled to announce that I have signed with Bookends Literary Agency for Silver Lining: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania...
December 3, 2018• Uncategorized
I'm a word guy. I read, I write, I edit. I've grown up with books. I loved The Hardy Boy books, and read a flock of them. (Flock of books?...
November 13, 2018• Donora History, Donora Smog Event
Knowing where each victim lived — and died — can be instructive for several reasons. Consider how many of those victims and their...
November 7, 2018• Donora Smog Event
Ceh and Kirkwood were the first Donorans to die in the Donora Death Fog of 1948. At least 18 more followed, most of them the same night....
October 26, 2018• Donora History
Stacey is right, race relations in the town were indeed strange, but it didn't seem to bother anyone much, apparently not even black...
October 25, 2018• Donora History
For decades during the mid-1900s a Chamber of Commerce sign at the Donora town line read, “NEXT TO YOURS THE BEST TOWN IN THE USA.”...
September 16, 2018• Just Me
The questions here are from the second questionnaire he developed, the one when he was 20. I thought it might be a fun exercise....
September 13, 2018• Just Me, Writing
I have been writing now — officially, professionally, occasionally happily — for 35 years, and I don't believe I have ever, until now,...
September 4, 2018• Donora Smog Event
Certainly there have been strides made in the nation's ability to combat air pollution. The greater Pittsburgh area, which once served...
July 2, 2018• Just Me
Just a few days later I was presented, apparently by cosmic fate, two items that have given me a new perspective on how Facebook and other...
May 19, 2018• Donora Smog Event
Four people are sometimes listed as having perished in smog, but for many reasons finding definitive information on them has proven...
March 27, 2018• Donora Smog Event
Susan was having trouble breathing that morning, but she kept ironing nonetheless. She also had a headache that wouldn't go away. She had...
March 5, 2018• Just Me
I know virtually nothing except that I can identify a wide variety of women's shoes. (Slingbacks, kitten heels, open-toed pumps — don't...
