Pen Denver: Journalism & How to Fight for Your Stories

This panel will feature a group of journalists who will share advice on how to create an effective pitch, how to survive in a press room, and how to find the best outlets for your stories.

Promoting civic dialogue and the importance of local individuals’ stories, this panel will be instructive to anyone who seeks to bring their stories to the attention of newspaper editors and other journalists.

This panel is in partnership with the PEN America Denver Chapter and will take place August 6, 2022 from 9:00 a.m.–10:05 a.m.

PANELISTS

Elaine Tassy is the first Race, Diversity and Equity Reporter at Colorado Public Radio. She began her position in February after working as a newspaper reporter at the Albuquerque Journal, Baltimore Sun, Grand Rapids Press, and Los Angeles Times, and college journalism instructor at schools including Temple University, University of The Bahamas, Temple University and St. Joseph’s University. She is also the author of How The Sun Lost Its Shine: A Newsroom Memoir, about some of the challenges of working in a daily newsroom as a black woman. She has a BA in English from Wesleyan University, and an MA in Journalism from Ohio State University.

Ana Campbell is the editor of Denverite. Ana’s been a journalist since she wrote about a rubber ducky race for her hometown newspaper in high school. She’s been editor of Denverite since 2020 and a Denver lover since she moved here in 2014. She grew up on the border in Texas. Ni de aquí, ni de allá.

Lisa Kennedy writes on popular culture, race, and gender among other topics – and has for more than two decades. From 2003 to 2015, she was film critic for the Denver Post. In 2012, she added theater critic to her beat. She’s been published in the New York Times, Essence magazine, American Theatre, Newsday, CNN.com, AARP.com, and Variety. Before becoming a full-time writer she was an editor at the Village Voice, among other publications. She writes the blog “Little Wanderings” on LisaKennedyWriter.com. She is at work on Icarus Ascending, an experimental memoir that unfolds during the AIDS crisis. She currently lives in Denver, CO—the city where she was raised—with her mate, Becky, and Gus & Jax, their awesome substandard poodle and just as awesome rescued terrier mix.