Jenna Bourne won the 2021 Suncoast Regional Emmy Award for Reporter – Talent – Investigative. Jenna is an investigative reporter at 10 Tampa Bay, a TEGNA station and CBS-affiliate. She hosts “What’s Brewing?” — an investigative YouTube series geared toward a Gen-Z audience.
Benjamin Oreskes was named print journalist of the year by the Los Angeles Press Club for his on-the-ground reporting of homelessness issues during the coronavirus pandemic. The competition’s judges lauded Oreskes for his “keen eyes for detail, excellent research and writing, and an empathy for the homeless and those who help, including firefighters, EMTs and a judge.”
Ben is a general assignment reporter in the California section. Previously, he wrote the Essential California newsletter. Before coming to The Times in February 2017, Oreskes covered foreign policy at Politico in Washington, D.C.
I’m working on my first feature documentary and we’re running a fundraising campaign right now for post-production: sound/color engineering, archival film licensing, festival applications, and more.
What We Carry tells the intimate story of one family while humanizing one of the most divisive issues of our time: immigration. After escaping violence in Honduras and joining the migrant caravan, a young couple and their son are taken in by a synagogue in Seattle, Washington, and their story becomes linked to the Jewish people’s long legacy of defending the right to refuge.
The film centers the stories of Mirna, Magdiel, and Joshua as they seek asylum. But we uplift not just their identities and day-to-day experiences of being immigrants, but also the daily joys and tribulations – and even the mundane moments – of parenthood, marriage, and setting up life in a new place – things that many of us, immigrants or not, experience ourselves.
Please check out the campaign at whatwecarrydoc.com. Thanks very much!
Lori Marshall (BSJ 1986 and MSJ 1988) published “One-Way Ticket to L.A.” written with her mother, Barbara Marshall. The memoir chronicles Barbara’s journey from Ohio to Hollywood where she was married to the writer-producer-director Garry Marshall for 53 years. Garry also graduated from Medill in 1956. The book was published by Sarah Street Press in early 2021.
Stephanie Chang, BSJ ’89, has been named Vice President of Content and Global Editor of Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group Custom Content, also known as The Trust. She directs the development of content for clients of WSJ | BG. She lives in Manhattan with husband Sean Nolan, BSJ ’89, and their two children.
Richard Longworth, a former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, is the author of “Chicago and the World” (Agate Press), a history of the Chicago Council’s first 100 years. He also has been honored with the Longworth Media Fellowships, funded by a grant from the Clinton Family Fund and administered by the Pulitzer Center, to finance reporting abroad by Chicago-area journalists on stories impacting Chicago.
David Dennis (MSJ09)
A dynamic family exchange that pivots between the voices of a father and son, The Movement Made Us is a unique work of oral history and memoir, chronicling the extraordinary story of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and its living legacy embodied in Black Lives Matter. David Dennis Sr., a core architect of the movement, speaks out for the first time, swapping recollections both harrowing and joyful with David Jr., a journalist working on the front lines of change today.
Taken together, their stories paint a critical portrait of America, casting one nation’s image through the lens of two individual Black men and their unique relationship. Playful and searching, anxious and restorative, fearless and driving, this intimate memoir features scenes from across David Sr.’s life, as he becomes involved in the movement, tries to move beyond it, and ultimately returns to it to find final solace and new sense of self—revealing a survivor who travels eternally with a cabal of ghosts.
A crucial addition to Civil Rights history, The Movement Made Us is the story of a nation reckoning with change and the hopes, struggles, setbacks, and triumphs of modern Black life. This is it: the extant chronicle of why we live, why we move, and for what we are made.
Greg Presto (BSJ04, MSJ07)
Exercise can do so much more than just make you sweat. It can also take you across the world to bike with zebras, back in time to the decks of the Titanic, or into the shoes of pro athletes, Hollywood superstars … and even presidents of the United States.
Whether you’re a beginner who can barely make it off the couch or a gym junkie who can’t stop moving, The Workout Bucket List is bursting with seriously fun fitness challenges and adventures for every type of person … and body! There are workouts, plans, races, and ideas to build your own ultimate life list of adventures—with options you can try at home, in your local gym, and across the globe. Inside this book you’ll:
· Race your bike over mountains against a locomotive
· Run in the world’s largest 10K
· Do leg day like America’s toughest firefighter
· Swim a mile in Mr. Rogers’s sneakers
· Tackle a workout using equipment from the Titanic
· Conquer the world’s tallest climbing wall
· Catch a big wave in the Big Apple
And hundreds more!
Lauren Kessler (BSJ71)
95 percent of the millions of American men and women who go to prison eventually get out. What happens to them?
A gripping and empathetic work of immersion reportage, Free: Two Years, Six Lives, and the Long Journey Home, by veteran journalist Lauren Kessler reveals what awaits the hundreds of thousands released from prison every year: the first rush of freedom followed quickly by institutionalized obstacles and logistical roadblocks, grinding bureaucracies, lack of resources, societal stigmas and damning self-perceptions, the often overwhelming psychological challenges. Free follows six people whose diverse stories paint an intimate portrait of struggle, persistence, and resilience.
Alan Heymann (BSJ97)
Human beings are expert storytellers. “Don’t Just Have the Soup” is a collection of 52 analogies from Alan Heymann’s executive and leadership coaching practice. Sometimes, the analogies come to his own mind. Sometimes, they hatch from the minds of clients or other coaches.
Analogies are a simple way to weave stories together and meet people where they are. In coaching, they’re a powerful tool for reframing what the client is experiencing.
They’re organized around 6 topics: The leader mindset, Communication, Time and attention, Relationships, Transitions and Coaching.