Since 1978 I have written for newspapers, magazines, and other outlets. I'm currently a contributing editor at Milwaukee Magazine, where I've won a half-dozen awards since 1995, and a senior contributor at Isthmus, Madison's weekly newspaper.
In addition to contributing major features to Milwaukee Magazine, from November 2006 through August 2011 I wrote the magazine's monthly Pressroom column. Pressroom was recognized for Best Beat Coverage in 2010 in the Milwaukee Press Club's Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism Contest -- Newspaper/ Magazine/Online Media category. Previously it was named Best Topical Column for 2007 in the contest's Magazine Division.
The Twitter feed to the right brings you links to the latest installments of PressroomBuzz, my regular online column at Milwaukee Magazine's InsideMilwaukee.com website.
Topics I've covered include the flamboyant and controversial defense lawyer Jerry Boyle; the fall and rise again of Master Lock, a symbol of manufacturing's survival in the global economy; how funeral homes market their services to the living and the dying; and the deaths of two women whose Pap smears were improperly read, leading to criminal charges against the medical lab responsible for reading the tests. I've profiled Congressmen Paul Ryan and James Sensenbrenner; Teamsters Union head Frank Busalacchi (who went on to serve as Wisconsin's Transportation Secretary under Gov. Jim Doyle); and MATC boss Darnell Cole, among others. In 2006 I covered the Wisconsin governor's race. And since 2001 I've written five features on Best Places to Work in the Milwaukee area, a project in which the magazine partners with the human resources training and consulting group MRA-The Management Association.
For Isthmus I've written primarily about the intersection of business, government and politics.
My work also has appeared in The American Lawyer; the Chicago Tribune; Midwest Airlines magazine as well as its successor, My Midwest; Small Business Times, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and The New Democrat. I also write for a series of trade magazines put out by Cole Publishing.
Before launching my magazine career in 1995, I covered labor and workplace issues for the Milwaukee Journal for nine years, and health and medicine for the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle. I graduated with a BA in English Composition from Beloit College in 1978 and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University in 1983.
Oh -- and, contrary to Henry Garfield's novel Moondog, I have never edited a weekly paper in Southern California, and I am not, nor have I ever been, a werewolf.
PO Box 85844, Racine WI 53408
mail (at) erikgunn.com
