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Imagine a 10-year-old girl, chubby fingers on the keyboard of
her Apple IIe, punching out a three-page newsletter for her
sixth grade class. That was freelance writer and editor Heather
Boerner’s start in journalism more than 20 years ago.
Though she accepts the teasing about it now, Heather is still
romantic about reporting and her career in it.
Heather has written horribly self-righteous editorials for her
high school newspaper, faced down her fear of cold calling at
her college paper and, in 1997, received her master’s degree
from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. For seven
years, she sharpened her skills as a reporter and deadline drive
at weekly and daily newspapers in New York, New Jersey and California.
If you get Heather alone at a cocktail party, she’ll tell
you her greatest hits from that time in her life—staking
out a city official’s house late one night as he was indicted
on corruption charges; covering the anniversary of school desegregation
in a district that found itself unwittingly segregated again;
starting commercial and residential housing coverage for the
Santa Cruz Sentinel and editing a team of five reporters
and interns. But those are just a taste.
In 2004, two things happened: Heather left the daily newspaper
grind to become a freelance writer, and she changed her approach
to food. As a side effect of the latter, Heather started what
so far has been a 75 lb. weight loss. Does she think losing weight
makes her a better person? Absolutely not. But taking control
of her health has changed many things in her life, not the least
of which is her approach to her work. Health coverage is one
of her favorite beats. Sure, that means she reports on nutrition
and healthy relationships with food, but it also means that she
writes about sexual health for publications like the San Francisco
Chronicle and Choice! Magazine online. She also edited the
2005 AIDS Walk San Francisco guide and was an associate editor
for a start-up health Web site spearheaded by Dr. Nancy Snyderman
in 2005. She also writes family-friendly reviews for CommonSenseMedia.Org,
and edited reviews for the site.
When she’s feeling lofty about her work, she approaches
it with eye toward covering difficult and often taboo subjects
with journalistic thoroughness and human compassion. But most
days, she’s simply looking for stories that can help people
live healthier, fulfilling and fun lives. And she’s always
searching for the proper venue through which to share them.
When she’s not finding new stories or pounding away at her
keyboard, she’s cultivating a life that supports her own
health — meditating daily, breaking a sweat at the gym, practicing
yoga, making her famous black bean soup, and visiting the dog park
to play with the puppies.
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