One of the benefits of being a freelance reporter is that I've been able to pick and choose the stories I cover, which has allowed me to write about subjects that really interest me. For the past two years I've worked as a regional freelancer for The Washington Post writing about people and events in my own backyard -- the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Living on the edge of the nation's capital means that my "local" stories often concern matters of national, and sometimes international, interest. This region is also the setting for The Merlot Murders, The Chardonnay Charade, The Bordeaux Betrayal, The Riesling Retribution and The Viognier Vendetta.

Below are descriptions and printer-friendly PDF files of some of my favorite stories. Click on the link to open the PDF in a new browser window.

Serene Setting, Real World Dangers:
Sending a journalist into a war-zone in the post-9/11 world is more dangerous and risky than ever. Many news organizations now make sure their correspondents get some basic training about how to survive -- mentally and physically -- in a hostile region.

Crash Course in Readiness:
Every 3 years the FAA requires 139 airports across the United States to test their emergency preparedness plans. In 2001, Dulles Airport experienced the real thing -- on September 11. The airport's first post-9/11 drill was held on May 13, 2004. The scenario: a plane brought down by terrorists.

Fourth of July:
Who knew that the folks who set off the huge fireworks displays at the national mall in Washington and Quantico Marine Corps Base need to worry about their underwear?

London taxi:
London's big, black taxis are as much a beloved symbol of that city as Parliament or Big Ben. Barry Lynch gambled that they might become as well-loved in the northern Virginia suburbs.

Citizens Police Academy:
It isn't often you have the Chief of Police telling you to stop driving like a sissy and burn rubber -- particularly when you're behind the wheel of one of his police cruisers.

Learning to Live With Paralysis:
The life of 16-year-old Paul Hopkins changed forever one night at a Virginia high school football game. He woke up days later in a hospital in Georgia, paralyzed from the neck down. For the next few months a kick-butt group of doctors and therapists put him through him a tough love program to prepare him for life in a wheelchair.

Friends Raise a Glass to a Man of Honor:
One of the saddest assignments I accepted for The Washington Post was writing an appreciation of Wayne Swedenburg, co-owner of the Middleburg, VA vineyard where I spent a lot of time while writing The Merlot Murders. He died after a fierce, brief battle with cancer in May, 2004.

North London’s Answer to the Taj Mahal:
Although I wrote this story for The Wall Street Journal ten years ago, the fascinating account of how the largest Hindu temple outside India came to be built in a working-class neighborhood in north London is one of my favorites. To learn more about the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, click here: http://www.mandir.org/.

Someone to Watch Over Me:
Washington, D.C. holds the miserable honor of being second worst city in the nation for its traffic-clogged commute. Nearly a dozen years ago -- after watching grass grow outside my car window while stuck in another interminable delay -- I contacted Walt Starling, then Washington's best-known airborne traffic reporter, who had been flying over DC for decades in the era before closed-circuit television cameras came into use. He took me flying -- twice -- over Washington and I wrote about it for the now-defunct Journal newspaper. Sadly, he passed away from cancer in 2005.

Page updated 6/20/10