About

A lifetime of experience as a magazine and newspaper writer and photographer, radio and television news producer and reporter, and guidebook author and editor, focusing on travel, automotive, lifestyle, and the environment.

Despite growing up in Manhattan–or perhaps because of it–I developed an early appreciation for travel, the environment and the outdoors, and write about adventures in the nearly 100 countries I have visited to ski, scuba dive, hike, bike, raft, spa, prowl around ancient and mythical archeological sites, or sit at a sidewalk café. My travel articles appear in Continental Airlines Magazine, UAL Hemispheres, Budget Travel, AAA Car & Travel, New York Post, Luxury Travel Advisor and websites including Suite101.com, RandMcNally.com and Triporati.com.

My love of NYC’s subway system notwithstanding, I write extensively on automobiles and driving, including for the New York Times, Newsday, AAA Going Places, a syndicated columnist for Motor Matters, as the Green Car Examiner on Examiner.com. I’ve also been known to pull on a helmet to test drive new models around a racetrack at warp speed.

A product of parents who owned and operated neighborhood retail stores, I champion consumer rights and issues. My articles on negotiating the consumer marketplace appear in magazines including Family Circle and Associated Press newspapers.

I’ve written or contributed to more than one dozen travel guidebooks about New York City, the Hudson Valley, the Caribbean, Canada and skiing.  My newest guidebook, 100 Peaceful Places in NYC, is being published in January 2010.

I’m a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, where I served two terms on the board of the Freelance Council, The Authors Guild, North American Snowsports Journalists Assn., and International Motor Press Assn. I’m a graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.

Before switching to print and the web, I was the consumer reporter for WABC-TV “Eyewitness News” and before that for WCBS-AM “Newsradio 88″ in New York City, investigating and reporting on frauds and dangerous products for the local stations and their parent networks, ABC News and CBS Radio.

All that on-air experience makes me an expert speaker. I share those newsroom and on-camera skills as a media interview coach, leading workshops and training seminars for corporations, industry associations, authors, and celebrities normally found on the gossip pages. We writers know how to interview others, but we need to be coached on how to be on the other side of the desk and be the subject of an interview, especially if the interview is live television. Just ask anybody who has wasted their 15 minutes of fame.

I’m a lifelong New Yorker, and raised two children as a single parent when I was widowed, and I am fiercely proud of the wonderful, accomplished  adults they have grown up to be.