Great Writing

This weekend, I finally took a little bit of time to go down to our basement and look through some of Erika’s things she had packed away. Unfortunately, it’s only about two small boxes in large part due to a terrible landlord she had in Providence. While living on North Main Street, she had put boxes of her possessions in the building’s basement. This was many of the things she had obtained while overseas, mainly while in Russia, but also from her years at Georgetown and while living in Baltimore and DC. One day, the landlord decided to clean out the basement and without warning, threw away everything in there, and most of Erika’s history was gone. She was always angry about that happening and unfortunately, there really isn’t too much left from that time.

But in my search, I found this pink hat that she wore:

But I have also since determined that she wore it better:

I found some really old looking thumbdrives from when she covered the 2008 Presidential campaign as a reporter, as well as her Blackberry. The Blackberry seems to have a camera on it, so hopefully I can power that up and see if there are any photos on there.

But best of all, I found her stash of copies of one very special Baltimore Sun article. Erika was a finalist in 2004 for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Writing. She wrote a two-part article about Josie King, an 18-month old girl who died in 2001 at Johns Hopkins University hospital due to medical errors. The hospital worked with Josie’s family and her mother, Sorrel, who then created the Josie King Foundation in Maryland.

Here is the layout of her story in the Baltimore Sun, dated December 14-15, 2003.

I’m not expecting anyone to read the article from that photo. If you’d like to read Erika’s work, you can find on the Baltimore Sun web site: “How Medical Errors Took a Little Girl’s Life.”

And as I always have to finish with a great photo of Erika, here is one of her professional headshot photos from the Baltimore Sun.

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