I’m working on feature story for Outside magazine right now. It’s my first feature for Outside — I started as an intern and an assistant editor there, but the most I ever wrote for them was a front-of-the-book blurb here and there. So the fact that it’s a feature (and potentially a 6,500-word one) is a big deal for me. It’s also a big deal because of the nature of the story. I won’t give too much away here (you’ll have to wait till it’s in print! In Outside’s February 2011 issue), but it’s a story of a very personal nature. When I was 13 years old, my stepdad, Jerry, was shot and killed at Otter Bar Lodge, a kayak school in northern California. He was killed by a caretaker of the lodge named JD. That was 15 years ago. This past summer, I decided to go back to Otter Bar with my mom and find out exactly what happened the night Jerry died. It was an intense week - definitely the toughest reporting mission I’ve ever done (far more difficult than, say, skiing in Iceland during a volcanic eruption).
My mom and I paddled sections of the Salmon River, right from the front porch of the cabin she and Jerry built together in the late 1980s. I interviewed everyone I could who knew about the incident in 1995: my mom, the owner of Otter Bar, JD’s lawyer, a raft friend of Jerry’s. And then, on the last day, I found JD. What do you say to the guy who killed your loved one by shooting him in the eyes with a .357 magnum? I started by saying hello.
I wrote a feature story on The Anti Gym and its tyrannical owner Mike Karolchyk for the February 2009 issue of Men’s Fitness. Right after the issue came out, news broke that Karolchyk’s gym was shut down by the IRS. "For two years I’ve been fighting an IRS claim for back taxes," Karolchyk told the Denver Post. “My legal team made the decision.” After that, he packed his bag and opened a gym in San Diego.