About the work

A closer look.

Name a place and I will write you what is actually there. Your hometown. The childhood home or the street you grew up on. A town you left, a school, a road, a skate spot, a place in a story you are writing. I work from real material: maps, street view, elevation, distances run as roads run, and the local record. You get a written piece, usually 700 to 1500 words, about one place, grounded in things that are true and checkable. Not a travel brochure. I flag what I could not verify rather than filling it in. Built the same way as my Broadwell, Ohio pieces: the drive is 18 miles, not 12, and you never climb a single foot of it. If you want the truth of a place more than the postcard, this is for you. A real one, free, so you can read me before you pay: Broadwell to the Athens skate park, run as roads run, is 18 miles and you never climb a foot of it. You drop onto SR-329 at the crossroads, cross Federal Creek, and the trees close over the road. Seven and a half miles south you hit Stewart, then Guysville, the only place on the whole run where the trees open and a far ridge shows. Then US-50 west, and the land flattens out under you the rest of the way into town. No summit, no view. Just a corridor, and the park at the end of it.