Once upon a time, before I shifted to writing books, I turned out magazine pieces of many kinds: travel, profiles, humor, investigations…. Here are a few I hope have retained their fizz:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and His Pal the Cockatoo Smuggler (Talk Magazine)
How I Failed to Learn Japanese (GQ)
Naval Academy Cheating Scandal (Esquire)
The Man Who Thinks He’s the Lindbergh Baby (London Sunday Times Magazine)
Primitive Autonomous Vehicles Racing Fiasco (London Sunday Times Magazine)
Arctic Town Eager for Global Warming (London Sunday Times Magazine)
Canadian Novelist Robs His 141st Bank (London Sunday Times Magazine)
The most astonishing person I ever profiled was a man named Bernard O’Mahoney. A Brit who had earned much of his living beating up people for money, O’Mahoney developed a sideline writing letters to serial killers imprisoned and awaiting trial. He wrote pretending to be a woman — more than one woman, in fact, since he tailored each one’s personality to the taste of each killer discerned over months of correspondence. He won the hearts of some and got them to detail their crimes. Then he gave the letters to the authorities.
Deadlier Than the Mail Title Page (London Sunday Times Magazine)
You think you’re smart. You think you know all the angles. Then some woman comes along and suddenly you’re not so smart any more. You start making mistakes. Next thing you know you’re the village idiot. Sure, it’s happened to plenty of men. But not quite the way it happened to Shaun Anthony Armstrong….
