Laura Vanderkam

lvanderkam@yahoo.com

 

Current projects

 

  • Writing Grindhopping: How to Build a Career Without Getting a Real Job, to be published by McGraw-Hill in November, 2006. See www.Grindhopping.com for details.
  • Contributing editor, Reader’s Digest. Responsibilities include writing and producing the “Only in America” section, feature writing and collaborating on special packages such as May’s annual cover story, “America’s 100 Best.”
  • Board of Contributors member, USA Today Forum page. Op-eds appear monthly on topics including politics, education, careers, youth and women’s issues. 
  • Blog: Gifted Exchange on gifted education topics; http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com

 

Books

 

   The Healthy Guide to Unhealthy Living, by David Clayton, MD with Laura Vanderkam. Published by Simon & Schuster, December 2005.

 

   Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds by Jan and Bob Davidson with Laura Vanderkam. Published by Simon & Schuster, April 2004, paperback in March 2005.

 

Freelance

 

   Work has appeared in Maxim, Fortune, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Trenton Times, Princeton Business Journal, Jewish World Review and SheThinks.org.

 

Newsroom experience

 

   USA Today, Forum/Editorial page, June 2001-July 2002. Duties included working with Forum editors to produce content for each day’s page by writing and editing columns, choosing photos, conducting interviews, fact-checking, writing headlines, editing letters to the editor and by participating in newsmaker interviews and meetings to decide the paper’s editorial positions.

 

   Fortune, June 2000-August 2000, intern, then hired as a freelance reporter for the remainder of the summer. Duties included writing, researching, fact-checking. Helped generate rankings for “40 Richest Americans Under Age 40” package with financial databases and subject interviews. Also worked on “Best Companies for Minorities” and early retirement packages.

 

   The Washington Times, reporter/intern, summer 1998, then rehired for summer 1999. Each summer wrote approximately 30 articles for national news section, covering Congress, the census, cultural trends, science.

 

Education

 

   Princeton University, 2001, A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Senior theses: Homeschooling: State Laws and the Goals of American Education and Hymns to the Dead Fish, a novel, through the Creative Writing Department.

   University of Melbourne, Australia, study abroad program, Feb-June 2000.

   Institute on Political Journalism at Georgetown University, June-July 1999.

   Foreign Correspondence Course, Collegiate Network, Czech Republic, July 2002.

 

College journalism experience

 

   The Daily Princetonian, biweekly columnist 1997-2001.

   The Princeton Tory (political bimonthly magazine), editor/publisher, 1999.

   The Nassau Weekly (alternative campus paper), news editor, 2000.

   The Princeton Tiger (humor magazine), staff writer, 1999-2001.

   Princeton University Press Club, member, 1997-2001.

 

Other

 

   President, the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, a 45-voice ensemble of singers in their 20’s and early 30’s, and founder of the annual Competition for Young Composers, which commissions new a cappella works.

   Five appearances in Carnegie Hall with the New York-based St. Cecilia Chorus

   Finisher, Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon, Virginia Beach, September 4, 2005