A Reporter's Notes on the Well-Lived (and Well-Fed) Life

Holly Hickman: Journalist _ Photographer _ Speaker _ Palest Gal in South Beach. (There’s a Warrant)

Greetings!

I’m a science writer, radio chick, kamikaze cook, photographer, conference speaker/emcee/producer, and the kind of traveler who suggests honeymooning in Antarctica.  (He still married me.)

Also, I’ve been known to yodel.  And *Flashdance!* at the gym.  Jazz-hands included.

What I do when people are paying me pretty-pretty money:

I specialize in translating complex subjects for general audiences in creative ways:  first, I’ll buttonhole an astronaut or doctor or scientist.  Then I’ll take a few minutes or hours or days to metabolize and wrangle all that gleaming brilliance.  Then I’ll bottle it all for multimedia consumption, and if my story can keep folks from, say, rubbernecking the celebrity train wreck of the day, then I’d say I’ve done my job well.

Background:

I spent two years at Fox News Radio reporting on NASA, science, health, the presidential race, hispanic affairs and breaking news.  I did this from Miami, Cuba and the 13 Barbecue States.  (Did you know that there exists on this planet such a wondrous and manly thing as organic pulled pork? It’s in Austin, natch.  I’ve listed it in my new e-guide, Healthy Eats Here!, along with more than 200 other restaurants across the United States that serve pastured, organic, seasonal and/or local foods.  It’s delish.)

If you’ve gotten this far, here’s a wee radio reel with some of my space stories.  And yes, that is my “radio voice.”  It only comes out when I promise chocolate.

(I have much longer interviews with Apollo-era astronauts, rocket scientists and epidemiology experts as well.  I listen to them when I want to feel inferior.)

Other Background:

I’ve also served as a non-fiction ghostwriter, a producer/director’s assistant on a feature film, a correspondent for Associated Press, a restaurant critic for CitySearch.com and a freelance writer/producer/photographer _ sometimes in the grasp of the muse, others in the grip of a hurricane.  Other writing interests include: the economy and international investments; food and water politics; the arts; epidemiology/health and sustainable living.

Accoutrements include a couple of degrees from Columbia University.  My mother insisted on polyglot for breakfast, so  I’ve done interviews in four languages but, da, have reluctantly said farewell to a fading fifth.

A note to worried parents everywhere:

I can safely and gratefully assure you that if your child does indeed commit the calamitous error of majoring in the liberal arts; fret not: she’ll still be able to buy you dinner during your denture years.  So be nice to her when she says she wants to move to Panama to become a dancer in the style of the Maasai.  She’ll work it out…promise.  And will probably get some good stories out of it.