I landed my first newspaper job as a college undergrad in Montana, working as an editorial assistant. “There’s no such thing as ‘not your job,’ ” my manager told me, and while she meant that in a “sometimes you’ll have to take dictation from the guy who forecasts the results of state fair horse races” way, I ran with it in a better direction and soon, in addition to writing the obits and calling the National Weather Service for daily forecasts, I was editing copy and designing feature pages. (Not bad for an English lit major who never took any journalism courses.)

My next move was to Colorado, where I worked on the editing and design team of a newspaper that published an afternoon edition on weekdays, but a morning edition on weekends. Every other weekend, you’d work until midnight or later on Saturday night, putting out the Sunday paper, and then be back at work at 4 a.m. Monday to do Monday’s edition. It screwed with my circadian rhythms something awful.

Recruited by a former manager, I moved to Arizona to help create a weekly entertainment magazine geared toward an 18-to-35-year-old readership. After two years, I transferred to the main publication as a writer and columnist whose beat included fashion and style in addition to traditional features. One day I’d write about a “lucky bust” at a bordello museum; another I’d be sitting across from shoe designer Christian Louboutin, discussing Kylie Minogue’s latest video. My yearlong series on obesity and losing weight won first place in the state for health writing at the same time I was contributing the Phoenix-area items for Allure magazine’s Directory section.

Eventually I became the newspaper’s features editor, but the precarious financial situation of daily journalism led me to look for steadier employment. Luckily, I was deemed a great fit at one of the country’s top content marketing firms, which helped clients create everything from print publications to websites and direct mail campaigns. (My personal clients included CBS, USAA, The Ritz-Carlton and healthcare organizations across the country.) Here’s where I learned the vagaries and specialties related to ROIs and CTAs, HTML and HIIPA.

A private equity firm swooped in to purchase that content marketing company a few years ago, merged us with a few other similar agencies, and then cleaned house in Phoenix. I was one of the lucky ones, because management offered me a relocation package to New York, but I’d grown too fond of desert life and decided to move on to find my next adventure.

I’m now editor and creative director at a national publication specifically for professionals in the dental industry, where I work with contributors, editors and designers to create two monthly magazines with a combined circulation of 250,000 and web content for a site that gets millions of hits every month (mostly thanks to our robust private message board forums).

Over the past several years, when I haven’t been in front of my office computer, I’ve been in front of my personal computer, working on freelance articles and proofreading for clients I’ve connected with thanks to those previous positions. As you’ll see as you browse through my portfolio, I’ve written about everything from leftovers to houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, what to do if you can’t get to sleep, or if you find yourself with 24 spare hours in Almaty, Kazakhstan, or Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

This site is by no means exhaustive, but recaps some of my favorite work. If you’ve got something interesting in mind, by all means give me a shout! Thanks for reading.

-sam