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About Me I've been writing steadily for over 40 years (and boy are my fingers tired!), in various places and jobs, volunteer gigs, freelance and for hire. Throughout my working life, I've emphasized creative and effective communications, internally and externally. I published my first magazine article in 1972 for the Job Corps in Action magazine, a first successful step that showed me I could write and publish. In 1984-85, I took a course in Instructional Design and Technology at the University of Wyoming. Just becasue I didn't have enough to do, I worked as Photography Editor and Night Editor for the campus newspaper, The Branding Iron. I interned at Arthur Anderson & Co. in Chicago (before they became infamous) in the Tax Department, where I interviewed content experts and wrote self-study curricula for AA&Co international staff, for distance learning and on-site instruction in tax law and procedures. It was a squeeky clean place to work, and, as you might expect, I didn't fgit in well. But I did learn how to take a boring subject such as tax law and massage it into semi-interesting self-study programs. In 1985, I began 15 years of work in academe, at Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska, Prince William Sound Community College in Valdez, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where I earned a PhD. in anthropology, with an emphasis on archaeological investigations on the effects of climate variability on indigenous migrations across the Bering Strait over the past 2,500 years. I taught graduate level anthropology and Museums studies classes, using curricula that I designed, counseled graduate students on their studies and designed and implemented distance learning classes via audio-teleconferencing in Native villages across Alaska. I published informational booklets for the National Park Service visitor Center about the cultural history of Glacier Bay National Park. At the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico I worked as Curator of Archaeology. In all of my academic work, I wrote scholarly and popular articles on my research. While in Alaska, I wrote environmental articles for newspapers and magazines. I wrote and published Wally World, a a pre-Internet newlsetter distributed by mail, about Alaska environmental issues during the Governorship of Wally Hickle. During the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, I wrote about the effects of the spill on the wildlife and indigenous people of Prince William Sound and produced a video documentary on the spill that was distributed world-wide by the United Nations. I coordinated volunteer efforts from around the world, using BITNET, a precursor of the Internet available among universities and colleges. From 2003 to 2011, I culminated 30 years of part-time and volunteer work in Public Radio as Operations Manager at KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz, California. I wrote policy and procedures manuals, press releases and underwriting announcements, edited the Daily Log and regularly proof-read and edited on-air copy. I also wrote local news and public interest articles for local regional newspapers, authored web sites for non-profit organizations, and wrote several blogs on environmental topics. My latest venture is self-publishing. I wrote, edited and published Écritage, a book of essays based on my experience in environmental activism, and Descendants of Edmond Lewes of Lynn, Massachusetts, a family history from my 11th Great-Grandfather, Edmond Lewes, who came to Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1634. My latest effort, my first novel, released on Earth Day, April 22, 2012, is The Environmeddlers, . Michael A. Lewis |
Michael A. LewisWriting in Place |
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