KATHLEEN HUGHES
Freelance Writer in Los Angeles and New York
ABOUT
KATHLEEN HUGHES
KATHLEEN HUGHES
I am a freelance writer and a former staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
Most recently, I have written personal essays and humor for both the WSJ and the New York Times covering subjects such as lost tortoises, downsizing and New York co-op boards.
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I’m also a below average triathlete. I have written several personal essays for the WSJ on the advantage of being over 50 and competing in the world championships on Team USA.
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My journalism career began in the eighties after studying history at the University of Wisconsin, working as an au pair in Paris and being fired from a long series of waitress jobs.
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I was hired as a news assistant in the New York bureau of the WSJ and soon became a reporter covering commodities, currency and paper companies.
Mostly I wanted to write humor. But as a reward for my coverage of paper companies, I was transferred to the Los Angeles bureau to cover banks and savings and loans.
After covering the collapse of many savings and loans, I was finally allowed to write only humor and eventually added Hollywood.
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Since leaving the paper to freelance, I have written page one stories about miniature pigs and feature stories about inheriting a portrait of an unattractive ancestor. I always wanted to be a foreign correspondent and am hoping to find a way to travel and write.