Books in My Career
Today I work as a Data Verification analyst at First Orion, and I’m also a twice-published author. I was a freelance journalist before transitioning into a tech career, and that’s something that has really shaped my perspective in the world of tech. The most surprising thing has been the parallels I’ve been able to draw between the two careers, even when it comes to writing books. Let me start from the beginning.
The idea of becoming an author “someday” felt inevitable as a freelance writer — at the very least highly hopeful. I just didn’t have much of a plan in place or an idea of what exactly I would be authoring when that day came. I had always envisioned a memoir as my first published work. A tell-all of my life. No matter what I was going to author, though, I definitely thought it would be on my own terms and timeline. I had no idea I would be approached by a publisher and offered my first book deal. And then my second. I credit good networking and being in the right place at the right time. Here’s how it happened.
I was working in Hot Springs as a journalist in 2021. I had been with the local newspaper since 2019, and had just resigned to freelance as a journalist full-time. It was an exciting, but nerve-racking, time in my career. Then one day, I got an email from a publisher out of St. Louis called Reedy Press. They said they had reached out to a tourism hub in Hot Springs I had worked closely with while at the newspaper. They were looking for a local writer for their 100 Things series, and my name came up. Asking me if I were interested in learning more, I tried not to sound too eager when I promptly replied “absolutely.”
Thanks to Reedy Press, I published my first book 100 Things to Do in Hot Springs Before You Die in May 2022. The book did well, and they asked me to write Secret Hot Springs: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. I published my second book, a part of Reedy’s “Secret” series, in May 2025. The short version is: timing, community, and networking opened the door to this fantastic opportunity.
My writing process isn’t pretty, but might not be unlike a lot of writers… particularly the ones with OCD. I’ll spend months thinking about what to write (because it has to be perfect if it’s hitting the paper) and then lock myself away for an entire weekend and produce an amount of copy so unbelievable that I lie to people when they ask how long it took me to write something to avoid them thinking I’m lying. But I digress.
Research is where the work gets real: I spent many hours at the Garland County Historical Society for both of my books, gathering both historical archives and oral histories from the volunteers who run that place. My main priority in both books were accuracy — to have something published and printed with my name forever on it, it better be true. So a lot of my time both in and out of the GCHS was spent fact-checking and further researching my work, and even outsourcing people to fact-check my work.
Today, I work as a Data Verification Analyst, and that type of thorough research shows up in my work, just like it did then. And as someone who is a real stickler for doing the “right” thing in the “right” way, that aspect of data verification makes my job really fulfilling.
The first book I wrote for Reedy taught me a lot of patience. The journalism I had been doing for a daily newspaper trained me for fast turnarounds and instant feedback; a book offers neither. There was no obvious finish line in sight, and no one is reading along as you draft. I had to adopt the tactic I hear from many authors… just write through the mess. Write the garbage sentences, and work from there. The first draft can’t be perfect, no matter how much you really need it to be.
What I want readers to feel in the finished product is trust. I don’t want to sensationalize a story or skip the hard parts, and if you read my book Secret Hot Springs you will see very clearly that I don’t. I want the history to stand, the context to be clear, and the questions to feel answered. If a reader leaves believing I respected the subject and told the truth, I’ve done my job.
My next project is titled American Spoils, and it’s a collection of essays on foundational occurrences in U.S. history that many of us didn’t learn, or were told not to question. I grew up trusting systems that sometimes harm people. This book is me asking better questions so we can understand the past, see the present more clearly, and choose better next steps. I am thinking I will self publish this one, but it is in the very early stages so nothing is set in stone.
Books bleed into every other part of my career today. Long-form projects taught me discipline and pacing. Source work sharpened my judgment. Collaborating with editors and designers prepared me for team environments. Those same skills show up in tech and in data verification: gather good information, check your sources, communicate clearly, and finish what you start.