Published Features

Grid

• Inside the Hell of East Palestine: Unanswered Questions, Frustration and the Lingering Threat of Toxic Chemicals
  • After an evacuation order was lifted Feb. 8, many residents of the Ohio village have returned home — but everything has changed (February 2023)

Cleveland Scene

• An Appeals Court Overturned Two Cleveland Men’s 2007 Attempted Murder Convictions. Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Still Think They Got It Right
  • Cleveland cops offer contradictory stories, and decades of prison time hang in the balance (April 2021)

• Six Years After a Cleveland Police Sergeant Shot Kipp Holloway, a New America Confronts Its Racist Legacy Again
  • Picking up the thread of police violence long after the shots were fired (June 2020)

• ‘Call It a Mixed Bag’: Cleveland Barbers on Getting Back Behind the Chair Next Week
  • Conversations with local barbers on what’s coming in the future and what we’ve lost in the past (May 2020)

• Innocent Until Proven Guilty
  • Two “bail disruptors” are putting up money to free people awaiting trial, while working to reform the system (February 2020)

• Caught Between Here and There
  • Octavius Williams was convicted of attempted murder in 2011. Now, he’s free, but far from finished with his case (February 2020)

• Consider the Testicle
  • A journey into rural Ohio for the annual Tiro Testicle Festival and a sense of who we are (May 2019)

• Haitian Asylum Seeker Remains in ICE Custody in Geauga County Two Years After Entering U.S.
  • Following the strange case of Ansly Damus, rerouted into a Northeast Ohio jail cell after escaping violence in his hometown (October 2018)

• What Happened in Bucyrus?
  • A hit goes wrong in rural Ohio, and a murder case spirals out of control for 23 years (November 2017)

• Life After Death
  • Northeast Ohio’s growing opiate addiction crisis is bittersweet for those needing organ transplants (August 2017)

• Come Fly Away
  • What we can learn about saving the planet from watching the birds (June 2017)

• Call and Response
  • A grieving father helped bring a new model of fighting heroin addiction to Summit County, and it might change everything (June 2017)

• Red Light, Green Light
  • What you need to know about Ohio’s medical marijuana law, in effect for seven months and changing every day (April 2017)

• Loading…
  • State laws allowed AT&T to exclude Cleveland’s poorest neighborhood from high-speed internet service (April 2017)

• A Pipeline Runs Through It
  • In the push to carve up Northeast Ohio with natural gas pipelines, property owners are winning so far, but the fight’s not over (March 2017)

• Mount Doom
  • East Cleveland residents have complained about the health hazards of the Noble Road dump for years. Is anyone listening? (February 2017)

• The Next Giant Leap
  • The U.S. wants to send humans to Mars by the 2030s. Here in Cleveland, NASA engineers are figuring out how to get there (January 2017)

• How Did a Deadly Elephant Sedative End Up in Ohio’s Heroin Supply Chain?
  • A close look at carfentanil, the horrifically powerful drug that landed in Ohio amidst the state’s heroin addiction crisis (November 2016)

• I Thought I Voted
  • Thousands of absentee and provisional ballots will be tossed out. Here’s why, and how to avoid it (October 2016)

• The Inside Story of the East Cleveland 3
  • Two decades after being wrongfully convicted of murder, I revisit the case that stole three young men’s lives (October 2016)

• When Steel Left Town (Again)
  • After 1,200 steel jobs disappeared in one year, Lorain pinches pennies to keep the city on life support (September 2016)

• Searching for America at the Cuyahoga County Demolition Derby
  • This was an unexpected story that came out of a visit to the Cuyahoga County Fair with Larry Collins and Tony Erba (August 2016)

• “Whatever Happened Happened”: An Oral History of Speak in Tongues
  • Interviews with dozens of musicians/punks/acidheads who lived and partied at a DIY music venue on the west side of Cleveland the 1990s (August 2016)

• “I Don’t Want To Die”
  • After his mom’s overdose death, a heroin addict confronts recovery in Cleveland (June 2016)

• In Recovery
  • Drug courts redefined how we approach the heroin epidemic; besieged in Lorain County, a judge confronts the crisis (March 2016)

• The Downtown Lowdown
  • The population boom in downtown Cleveland is very real and very good. But how long can it continue? (February 2016)

• A Quest Across the River Styx
  • How and why the destitute dead of Northeast Ohio are remembered (November 2015)

• Memorial Days
  • The story of Cleveland’s gang violence is written chapter by chapter with balloons, posters and candles on the city’s streets (October 2015)

• Under the Big Top
  • The struggle to save (or close) Lakewood Hospital is a circus act with no signs of ending (September 2015)

• Debt Fest
  • Machine Gun Kelly’s EST fest drew thousands to Nelson Ledges last year. So, where’d the money go? (August 2015)

• Guitar Man Was Here
  • He’s the hero Cleveland deserves, and the hero Eli Fletcher needs (April 2015)

• Estate of Emergency
  • Was an 81-year-old wife, mother and grandmother abducted by her own daughter or rescued from a bad situation? (April 2015)

• Enter Utica
  • The fracking industry really loves Ohio. Here’s what’s on tap for us all (co-bylined with Sam Allard) (February 2015)

• Forgotten Assault
  • A brutal attack on two transgender women in 2011 foreshadowed several troubling years against the LGBT community in Cleveland and the city’s ill-equipped ability to respond (Third Place, Best Feature in the 2015 AAN Awards) (December 2014)

• The Day Cleveland Exploded
  • 70 years later, the unthinkable disaster of the East Ohio Gas Co. explosion (October 2014)

• Hired Gun
  • From Lakewood to Baghdad, the evolution of Stony Smith (July 2014)

• Redemption Song
  • A portrait of life at 2100 Lakeside Avenue (June 2014)

• Hung Out to Draw
  • At the crossroads of Cleveland’s often usurious relationship with local artists (May 2014)

• Gone Daddy Gone
  • Elizabeth Perez served in the Marines, went to college and started a family. Now, she’s fighting immigration laws after her husband was deported to Mexico (May 2014)

• One Night in Amish Country
  • A butter-churned journey into the heartland for the most exclusive dinner in Northeast Ohio (April 2014)

• The Battle for East Cleveland
  • With bankruptcy looming (again) and merger talks heating up, a look at how East Cleveland arrived here and what might be next (co-bylined with Sam Allard, Doug Brown, Vince Grzegorek) (March 2014)

• All the Bars
  • We join the Cleveland Bar Experiment for a night, downing cheap beer and free tequila only to discover that there’s always another drink on the path to visiting every bar in Cleveland (co-bylined with Sam Allard) (March 2014)

• The Would-Be Kid King of Cuyahoga
  • The race for Cuyahoga County executive was another routine election until one young Republican punk from Berea showed up out of nowhere. Just as quickly, though, he disappeared (February 2014)

• Team Arthur
  • Meeting Arthur Chu, controversial Jeopardy! champion from Broadview Heights (January 2014)

• Hunger Games
  • Food stamp benefits have been cut all across Ohio. Here in Cleveland, the hungry and poor are hungrier and poorer than ever (January 2014)

• Learning How to Breathe: The Endless and Fruitless Search for Chuck Standberry
  • On the emptiness in searching for missing loved ones (December 2013)

• Live from Trumbull Correctional
  • Traveling to a state prison in eastern Ohio for a rock show at 8:30 a.m. (December 2013)

• The Fall of King Randy
  • How the (former) superintendent of Medina City Schools slashed and burned through the district’s trust and money (November 2013)

• Welcome to the Hotel Cuyahoga
  • County and city leaders team up to bankroll a downtown Hilton hotel with tax dollars (November 2013)

• After the Fire
  • Snitches got Antun Lewis convicted of setting Cleveland’s deadliest house fire. Snitches might now set him free (October 2013)

• Missing: The Long Lost Case of Christina Adkins
  • After three women are rescued from captivity on Cleveland’s west side, a look at another missing persons case from the neighborhood (September 2013)

• The Guitarist: Michael Bay and the Music
  • A profile of the greatest blues guitarist in Cleveland (September 2013)

• The Art of the Autopsy: Photographer Seph Lawless Spends His Days Documenting Decaying Ruins
  • Urban exploration on the east side of Cleveland (August 2013)

• Caged: How Ohio Politicians Keep The State’s Puppy Mill Business Booming With Little Regulation
  • On the politics that support crazy puppy breeders in rural Ohio (July 2013)

• Captive in Ashland
  • The feds charged four people with “forced labor” following a kidnapping case out of Ashland. As the story unfolds it only gets more confusing (July 2013)

• The Ballad of Little Lou
  • The best karaoke in town is holed up in a little club on West 54th Street (July 2013)

• Marriage Equality is Great and All, But…
  • Cleveland’s LGBT community is focused on more important things right now (June 2013)

• Captain America Divides Cleveland
  • Hollywood comes to the city (June 2013)

• The Long History of Ariel Castro, Cleveland Kidnapper and Monster
  • Written in under 24 hours, a profile of a heartless criminal (May 2013)

• The Wrong Side of Rights
  • Alfred Cleveland is not a murderer. Alfred Cleveland has spent 16 years in prison for murder (April 2013)

• The Saga of League Park
  • Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood is hanging on to the past glories of Cy Young. Will its future ever look as bright? (April 2013)

• The Fuzzy (Warm) Science of a City’s Happiness
  • Positive psychology stakes a foothold in Cleveland, proving this really is a happy place after all (March 2013)

• Sunk by Sandy
  • Far from the eye of the storm, a woman’s life is upended in Cleveland by Hurricane Sandy (February 2013)

• Forrest vs. The State of Ohio
  • After a near-fatal shooting, one dog joins the fight against Ohio’s antiquated animal protection laws (January 2013)

• The Funny is Everywhere
  • A profile of Cleveland’s local comedy scene (January 2013)

• A Portrait of the Young Man as a Fugitive
  • What happens when a “wanted” man isn’t wanted at all? (January 2013)

• How to Survive the End of the World in Northeast Ohio
  • When the shit hits the fan as the Mayan calendar comes to an end, we turn to the preppers for advice (December 2012)

Cleveland Review of Books

• Your Life is a Prize: On Allison Hite’s ‘Never, Ever Give Up’
• When Disaster Strikes: On Jon Mooallem’s ‘This is Chance!’
• Just Beyond the Frame: On Kyle Swenson’s ‘Good Kids, Bad City’
• Freedom and Information: On Anabel Hernández’s ‘A Massacre in Mexico’

Cannabis Business Times

• The Elder Statesman
• Every Second Counts
• No Short Cuts
• Working on a Dream
• Tenacious Hemp
• Blooming in Water Hill
• The Michigan Crucible
• Hemp Production is Legal in the U.S. Now What?
• Everyone’s Favorite Bakeree
• The Golden State Rules

Men’s Journal

• Tito Francona, Dad to Cleveland Indians Manager Terry, Dead at 84
• Inside the Ohio Factory Where Wilson Makes the Official Super Bowl Game Balls

Ralph Lauren

• Making History

Alt Ledes

• Thou Shalt Not Sin

Jambands.com

• Aqueous Ascending