Michele Weldon Biography

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Michele Weldon is an author, journalist, keynote speaker, and assistant professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Biography

Education

Michele Weldon received both her BSJ (1979) and MSJ (1980) at Northwestern University"?s Medill School of Journalism.

Career

Michele Weldon is an expert in narrative nonfiction storytelling, essays and opinion writing as a journalist, educator, author, keynoter, workshop and seminar leader for The OpEd Project.

She began her career as managing editor at [North Shore Magazine] in Winnetka, Illinois in 1979. Weldon then moved to associate editor at Adweek Magazine in Chicago, Illinois and in 1981 became the Midwest market editor at Fairchild Publications.

In July 1984, Weldon became a feature writer and columnist for the Dallas Times Herald in Dallas, Texas, where she worked until December of 1988. Beginning in 1989, she started work for the Chicago Tribune as a regular freelance contributor. During her 23 years as a contributor for the Tribune, Weldon wrote for numerous sections including Style, Tempo Woman and WOMANEWS. In 1990 she began writing a monthly "Her Say"? news opinion column, which she continued until 1994. For three years following this work, she had a weekly business column and then a weekly news column from 1997-1999. From 2008 to the present she has been writing opinion essays for The Chicago Tribune.

Weldon has been a columnist for West Suburban Living in Elmhurst, Illinois since 1996. Weldon has written three nonfiction books and recently completed a fourth. Weldon began writing as a columnist for Personal Journaling Magazine at Writer"?s Digest in 2000 and continued until 2003. In June 2011, Weldon began work as a columnist for The Huffington Post in culture, women and media verticals.

In addition to her body of work as a freelancer and opinion writer, Weldon began teaching at the Medill School of Journalism, her alma mater, in 1996 as an adjunct lecturer and then as a senior lecturer from 2001 until 2003. Today, she is an assistant professor at Medill at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, a position she has held since July 2003. She has taught Reporting & Writing, Multimedia Reporting, Magazine Storytelling, Enterprise Reporting in Diverse Communities, Introduction to 21st Century Media, Journalism Methods, and Newswritng.

Weldon has been featured on many radio and television shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show,"? "The Jenny Jones Show, "Milt Rosenberg Show,"? "WBEZ"?s 848 Chicago,"? "NBC"?s Later Today,"? "ABC Sunday Morning,"? "CBS Morning Show,"? and BBC-TV.

Owner and instructor of Writing to Save Your Life Workshops since 2000, she continues to work as a national and international keynote speaker. In 2011, she began working as the leader of the Public Voices Fellowship at Stanford University, [www.northwestern.edu/ Northwestern University] and [www.princeton.edu/main/ Princeton University] through The OpEd Project, where she has been a seminar leader since 2011. In December 2011, Weldon worked as a leader, trainer, and mentor for the Global Voices Project and World Pulse She is a mentor with the Global Girl Media project, a member and mentor of Association for Women Journalists, a former member of the board of directors of Journalism & Women Symposium.

Weldon has also given more than 300 keynotes from 1993 to 2012 throughout the United States and Canada and has been involved in various multimedia storytelling projects such as TEDEd and The Moth, where she participated in the Moth Chicago GrandSlam in March 2012.

Work

Nonfiction Books

• I Closed My Eyes (1999) ISBN 1-56838-742-3
• Writing To Save Your Life: How To Honor Your Story Through Journaling (2001) ISBN 1-56838-742-3
• Everyman News: The Changing American Front Page (2008) ISBN 0-8262-1777-X

Everyman News: The Changing American Front Page

Everyman News deals with the shift of newspaper content from hard news to more personal, narrative feature journalism. The rise in the use of unofficial sources, the decline in the "inverted pyramid"? form of news writing, and the humanization of news are all indicative of this transition. Weldon discusses American culture"?s fascination with personal stories and how newspapers alter their content to the readers"? demands.

The book also takes a look at how forces outside of the newspaper, such as blogs, citizen journalism, and newsroom diversity have helped evolve the newspaper to become the story paper. Using hundreds of excerpts from newspapers and interviews with people connected to journalism, Weldon takes an in-depth look at the modern newspaper.

Columnist/Feature Writer

Weldon has published articles as columnist and feature writer in over 20 newspapers and journals.

Essays in Other Books

• This I Believe on Fatherhood by Dan Gediman, John Gregory, and Mary Jo Gediman
• "?The Changing Nature of News"? in 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook
• "?Making Readers Want Novels is Writer"?s Hardest Job"? in Conversations with Joyce Carol Oats
• Mentioned in "Surviving Survival" by Laurence Gonzalez

Current Projects

• Chicago Collaboration for Women In Stem- Weldon is currently working on this project which involves a three-year partnership between Northwestern University and University of Chicago for the advancement of women faculty in STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Weldon is the speaker for "Loud and Clear: Maximizing Your Credibility and Influence in the World of Ideas,"? which will take place on Thursday, February 21 in Naperville, Illinois.