When the pandemic hit, our weekly print publication ceased and the paper went into limbo. A core group of staffers (including me) kept the paper going on the web while creating a new, nonprofit version of Madison’s long-running and award-winning alt-weekly. We returned to print as Isthmus Community Media in August of 2021. We are still printing monthly as we learn more about being a nonprofit and continuing to be part of the Madison we love.
For the last few years, I have written heavily on the food beat; since the pandemic, I have been covering access to food, changes in food pantry distribution and senior meals and the struggle of restaurants to stay afloat in a strange new landscape. I have also reported on the arts for many years. Here’s a running list of all my stories for Isthmus.
There are a lot of them, so if you want to skip the gristle, here are some of my favorite stories:
Timothy Yu finds poetry for this political moment.
Trachte buildings are a piece of Madison history. And they’re disappearing fast.
This is a funny little podcast prototype that Dylan Brogan and I did about my story about Trachte sheds.(podcast concept never went anywhere)…
Susan B. Anderson and her creations are big in the knitting world. It turns out Madison is home to a true member of the knitterati. And she and her son have recently launched their own 100% U.S. sourced and spun yarn company, that also features a Midwest-specific yarn called Home.
Photographing dairy cows is no do-it-yourself, amateur art. Cybil Fisher has made a career of it. She has a few tools at her disposal, including a team of cow wranglers, spray paint, an orange monkey on a stick and a bucket of feed.
Madison homebrewers take control of their beer. The community finds support among several clubs and friendly homebrew shops. There’s even a poetry reading.
Will 2013 be the year of the community dinner?
Freewheeling!
A report on Madison’s food cart scene in the year that was its high-water mark.
How far would you go for a Lake Louie?
Winner of “Best Business Story” from the Milwaukee Press Club, 2010
Lake Louie is a small craft brewery in Arena, Wis. run by Tom Porter, who’s a legend in Wisconsin home brew circles.
Fighting Jon
A profile of State Sen. Jon Erpenbach.
They see dead people
The summer Spiritualist camp in Wonewoc is like a time capsule or like being transported back to the late 19th century when Spiritualism was at its zenith in the U.S. Yes, Spiritualists believe in communication with those who have passed on; no matter what your beliefs are, the camp is a piece of American history.
Is Wisconsin Licensing Puppy Mills?
An update on Act 90 three years after it took effect. Is the law that requires the licensing of dog sellers putting puppy mills out of business, or is DATCP, the state agency that oversees the process, actually helping them get licensed?
Rescue Me
The fight to create a state law that requires dog sellers to be licensed.
My first job as an editor was as a developmental editor at Brown & Benchmark publishers in Madison. I worked on college psychology textbooks. There were two developmental editors on the psych list and I shepherded the texts in intro, social, industrial/organizational, and behavioral neuroscience, as well as texts for a “pre-” intro class usually called something like “Human Behavior.”
Everybody referred to psych texts by the author’s last name, because they all have basically the same title, i.e., “Introduction to Psychology.” The cover to Sdorow (with the “Sdorow” larger than “Psychology”) was at the time kind of revolutionary in intro psych cover design. This was one of the books I was working on when McGraw Hill acquired Brown & Benchmark and the editorial moved to Boston.