writer [rahy-ter] : a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., especially as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist.
I’m looking to interview people with the same name as any notable public figure. If you or someone you know shares a name with a celebrity, criminal, fictional character, or any other famous name, please do not hesitate to contact me.
My email is lauratcerrone@gmail.com.
Please help me find these people.
It’s pretty much summed up in this one article called Obama’s Way by Michael Lewis for Vanity Fair.
Read it.
Read it if you’re Republican. Read it if you’re Independent. Read it if you’re Democrat. Read it if you don’t care.
It’s a long read, but it is dazzling and thought-provoking. The neurons in my brain are firing and I’m lit with ideas and clarity. Amazing.
Yesterday when I left the office I grabbed two copies of the paper I work for. Lo and behold, there was my name printed in the byline on page 14.
I’ve always loved that feeling immensely. I’ll definitely share the article up on here when it is made available on the website.
I’m so excited, I enjoy being at this office and I enjoy the atmosphere.
This morning was fun because when I got in, my editor asked me to call the police department for another town. The editor of that paper wasn’t in just yet and he needed someone to get the basics of a car that crashed into a house.
It felt so natural. It’s definitely putting aside my anxieties as I get better accustomed to a newsroom setting. On to bigger and better things always! 🙂
Today I handed in my first article. It was a different experience than handing it into a professor or peer to edit, grade, and return.
I sat at my editor’s desk as he read out-loud my article. I couldn’t help but already nit-pick things that I could of changed, and small mistakes that I had made out of being nervous.
Despite my heart lodging itself in my throat the whole time, it wasn’t that bad of an experience. My professors always spoke of this experience. That there own articles would be pulled apart and marked up unbelievably. I had a couple of word-agreement mistakes, and needed to shift some information around but other than that the editor said my article was good.
What a relief!
So I survived my first newspaper editing experience. I have had plenty of articles edited, all of them have been, and a every article should, but this one was new.
I’m glad I didn’t cry!
I had to write a tragedy article for a class last semester, so I chose my dad. Obviously I can’t publish it but I thought it would be nice to share.
Enjoy!
________
by Laura Cerrone
Angelo Cerrone does not like to remember his near-death experience 35 years ago. So much so, his wife barely knew it even happened.
In 1976, Cerrone was 22 years old, working for the aviation service company Allied at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Jamaica, Queens. He was assigned to troubleshoot a company bus that would not turn on. Cerrone recalls the only other person was the bus driver, one with no knowledge on fixing a vehicle.
“I troubleshooted the vehicle and it still wouldn’t start, the battery was okay, so I knew the problem was elsewhere.” said Cerrone.
He proceeded to inspect the undercarriage of the vehicle. He had instructed the driver to stay in the driver’s seat with the bus in park and his foot on the brake. Cerrone remembers the moment the bus turned on – and suddenly it began to move, dragging him underneath as the driver pulled away.
“It was a burning pain. It was like a hot rash. Like I was set on fire.”
Cerrone gripped onto the bus’ chassis. “If I were to let go I would’ve been run over.”
He was dragged almost 20 feet before his screams were heard by the driver. In a matter of minutes an ambulance arrived and took the young man to Peninsula General Hospital.
For Cerrone this could have been the end to his life, or the end to his dreams working in the airline industry. As a young boy, Cerrone grew up in post-World War II rural Italy. He lived on a farm where he shared a room with four other siblings, and used an outhouse. When his father brought him home a broken bike, Cerrone fixed it. When he moved to the United States at 13, he saw opportunity all around him, the biggest of all was working for the airline industry, because to him there was nothing more powerful and magnificent than an airplane.
Cerrone had sustained lacerations running up and down his back, internally he was miraculously unscathed.
While physically he healed with a few days in the hospital and several weeks off work, he wasn’t emotionally ready to take on his job again.
Cerrone turned to a friend of his mothers named Marisa Schiavello, Schiavello specializes in spiritual prayer healing. While Cerrone attended his regular doctor check-ups to check for possible infection he also sought sessions with Schiavello. Schiavello and Cerrone’s mother would swaddle him in bandages and then pray to God for him to heal.
“Emotionally it helped, made me feel that God was on my side because I wasn’t killed.”
Cerrone now lives in a house he worked years to build with a wife and three kids, a cat, and two bunnies. He still works for the airline industry at American Airlines where he gets to watch airplanes take off and land, still fascinating his inner-childlike awe.
Cerrone reflects on everything he has now and imagines it could of all been very different.
“The scariest thing about this ordeal is that I thought it was the end of my life.”
I’m currently working on an article about women who drastically change their appearance/cut their hair following a break-up or other traumatic experience. I’ve done two interviews so far and am finding out really interesting information. A lot of it is what I anticipated but other information is new and gives a depth about people and their coping abilities.
I really can’t wait to write it and file it and post it on here! I definitely want to accompany it with a post about the process.
Currently writing a paper on the court case Branzburg v. Hayes. I never knew how much reading there was to do in a court case. Sunday bummer!
The case is very interesting though. If you’re not familiar with it, it is the Supreme Court case that allows courts to subpoena journalists to reveal their sources. I think the 35 year gap is also astounding. Thirty-five years ago courts were always subpoenaing journalists to reveal their sources, and it died down after that until present day where it has started back up again. I think it shows how the 70s and present day have linear circumstances.
Subpoena is also a really cool word.