Backstory
As part of my epic midlife crisis last year I resigned from a lucrative position in the Bay Area, ended a fourteen year relationship, moved to New York, and had an epiphany that I needed to come to St. Louis and finish my book of short stories, many which take place in the city. The book will be released this summer.
The plan was not to become a gossip columnist, a label I don’t really embrace, but things snowballed with my exposé about a local con artist as stories people had sat on for years poured in, providing a lifetime of material. I have enough for several books and new leads come in daily.
In the past nine months I broke a story that went national about two educators fired for being lesbians, and have called attention to cases of domestic violence and identity theft. I’ve exposed that a devastatingly gorgeous man who was friends with hundreds in the LGBT community before he died in an accident never really existed, and that someone who was mourned three years ago after hanging himself was very much alive and living in California.
People fill my inbox with tawdry tidbits about who slept with who, which I don’t pursue, but many messages are from individuals who've been victimized or abused and are desperate to get their story out. They are messages from the underdog.
In my travels I’ve found that disgraced people normally move on, but St. Louis is a city where the disgraced stay in place, enabled by people who think pointing out bad behavior is worse than the behavior itself. The blowback has been substantial, and has included several organized letter writing campaigns asking Vital Voice to fire me, beginning with Cor Jesu alumnae, cries that I’m a bully, threats of blackmail, and retaliatory rumors have been spread that I was arrested in a raid at a dirty bookstore and that’s why my husband left me -- which isn't true.
Having so many people either upset with me or after me on a regular basis can be corrosive to the spirit, and more than once I decided to stop writing controversial pieces. And then someone comes to me with a story nobody else will touch because of the potential backlash, and I decide to ride the bull again. Plus I came to St. Louis because it's a place filled with fascinating stories, and I enjoy sharing them.
In the past year several have joined me in my efforts, including "Ride or Die" Meeshu Bono-Thompson,
"Maestro of Memes" Josh Jordan,
and investigator "Jolene Gotcha" who, like a cat, always lands on her feet. That's why we say "Jolene GOTCHA always gets the last laugh."
Each loyal member of the team brings something to the table as we work to uncover, inform, and entertain.
Please spread the word about the blog, and thanks for reading.
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