Journalism and JOANNIE FISCHER met by accident. As an international relations student at Harvard, she says, she had intended to enter the foreign service until a professor discouraged her with a grim vision of a future “stuck in a windowless office in Zimbabwe.” Encouraged to pursue a career in writing, Fischer—with virtually no experience or training—quickly landed a job at States News Service, covering developments in Washington for newspapers around the country. Less than a year later, in 1989, she was hired by U.S. News & World Report and began a steady ascent. By 1996, she was a senior editor at the magazine, writing principally about science. Now working from Mountain View as a contributing editor for U.S. News and a freelance journalist, Fischer says writing about the Stanford Daily (“Read All About It”) made her wistful about missed opportunities during college. “Seeing how the Daily is, and always was, so extremely welcoming and nurturing makes me wish I could have had an experience like that,” says Fischer, who was rebuffed by the Harvard Crimson during her undergraduate years. “Actually, I wanted to attend Stanford, but they didn’t have an early-admission program back then, and Harvard did. Otherwise, I might have been a Daily person myself.”
ROD SEARCEY’s photos have appeared all over the magazine—in features, news stories, sports reports and departments. But his pictures for 1,000 Words have been particularly striking. Remember last year’s “Morning Glory” photo of crew practice at dawn, or the “Wacky Talk” shot from Commencement? In this issue, it’s “Dish Dash,” a dreamlike image captured at sunset. Searcey, ’84, took up photography during his junior year “when I fell in with a bad bunch at the Daily,” he says. After majoring in English and communication, the Palo Alto-based photographer worked for the now-defunct Peninsula Times-Tribune before becoming a freelancer. For a glimpse of his rookie days, see “Read All About It,” featuring photos from Searcey’s Daily archives.
So convincing are the family dynamics and sense of place in this year’s winning fiction entry that we had to call the author to make sure it was fiction. Absolutely, CARL HEINTZE assured us. “Going Home,” set on Kauai, was inspired several years ago when Heintze and his wife, Marge, were returning from the island to their home in San Jose. “On the plane, I met a native Hawaiian who lived on the mainland and had gone back to Kauai for his mother’s funeral,” Heintze says. “I imagined the rest.” A writer all his life, Heintze, ’47, earned a master’s from the Columbia School of Journalism and spent most of his career as a science reporter for the San Jose Mercury News before retiring at age 58. He has published three other short stories, as well as a dozen science-related books for kids. And where do you think he got his start? In the Daily shack, of course.
