Managing Editor / Columnist

December 2010 – September 2011

HuB Sarasota was a business incubator that provided offices, co-working spaces, consulting, sound studios and video production services for young professionals in downtown Sarasota.

I was brought on as Managing Editor and Columnist for ThisWeekInSarasota.com, an online events calendar and news media outlet weighing in on political and economic issues from the perspective of the “creative class.”

I edited pieces from contributors, published posts to the WordPress site and social media pages, engaged with readers in the comments, and responded to messages and emails.

I also wrote highly satirical columns under an alias dubbed “The TWISler,” laying out our takes on policies, projects and politicians after being discussed and agreed upon by the HuB team.

Sarasota is Florida’s arts capital, and there was a battle at the time between young creatives seeking to foster a more vibrant city and retirees fighting to retain their quiet, sleepy beach town. Comedy was the vehicle used to drive our message. We published hilarious editorials endorsing candidates and weighing in on economic initiatives. We ran “get out the vote” campaigns, threw launch parties for start-ups, and sponsored music festivals and art exhibitions highlighting local talent. 

This job was kind of a quasi writing/marketing hybrid. The work itself resembled a news media role, conducting interviews and deep dive research, but objective journalism was not our goal. We were deliberately marketing an agenda to sway readers into action in order to deliver outcomes we felt would benefit the young professional creative class. It was more like a wide-ranging political campaign, focused not on any specific issue or election, but an overall vision for the city’s future.

Disclaimers:

1. I transferred the posts featuring my writing work from the CLSarasota.com and ThisWeekInSarasota.com websites to my own WordPress site at some point in 2011. Much of the original formatting did not survive the journey to present day. I plan to clean them up as time permits, but for now you’ll have to bare with me and use your imagination with the funky punctuation, lack of paragraph breaks, broken photos and links to nowhere. I appreciate your understanding. 

2. Sarasota is a huge arts town and I was a voice for the young creative community, which was a more left-leaning movement challenging the right-leaning political establishment at the time. Some of these posts will reflect this viewpoint. These days, I am proud to consider myself an extreme far-middle, no-wing, dyed-in-the-wool purple moderate independent. I love living in the heart of East Tennessee and I find common ground conversing with all walks of every stripe just fine.

This Week In Sarasota Highlights