The Write Stuff

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                  Susan L. Oppat                          


Professional Profile


·      Legal, tech-, detail- and deadline-oriented professional writer and editor with many years experience as a newspaper reporter, and  corporate publication contract writer/editor.

·       Wrote about, helped found and strategized to obtain and track donations for corporate nonprofit, Warm the Children.

·       Exceed at establishing and maintaining professional relationships across all boundaries.

 

Experience


The Write Stuff, Owner/operator 2008 – Current

·       Freelance/contract writing, editing and design.

·       Interview corporate clients, ghostwrite monthly column that runs in regional business magazine.

·       Edited a new college curriculum proposal.

·       Design small web sites, and write text.

·       Wrote award entries for Microsoft partner.

·       Write cover letters and resumes.

·       Design corporate logos and marketing products.

 

Ann Arbor News, staff reporter 1982 - 2009 (paper closed.)


·       Pulitzer-nominated newspaper writer, researcher and investigator/researcher.

·       Wrote about and investigated everything, researched everything, and worked with every kind of person, from government officials, to nonprofit directors, to crime victims. Drop me into just about anything. Learn what needs to be learned - instantly - and turn it into something readable, interesting and informative. That includes technical information that must be turned into something any non-technical person can read and understand and even enjoy.

·       Persuaded and interviewed subjects to obtain information for articles.

·       Conducted online and face-to-face research, for both myself and the entire newsroom. Editors once waited for my return from a leave to assign me – rather than anyone else in the newsroom – to investigate the president of the local United Way. My work forced police to open an investigation, and resulted in felony convictions for the president.

·       Spoke at engagements and schools about The News and journalism.

·       Created The News' first investigative research database, and used it to craft a series of stories that resulted in a Pulitzer nomination.

·       Created The News' first tracking database when it founded the nonprofit Warm the Children program, and came up with the ideas for and strategized and wrote most of the stories that generated donations to fund the program that raised more than $1.5 million over 12 years.

·       Designed and published my own website, and sites for a Boy Scout troop, the nonprofit Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative and a solar energy start-up.

·       Superb editing, research, writing, deadline, multi-tasking, networking, and media skills.


Education

·       University of Michigan BA, Journalism.