Profiles require several skills: excellent research skills, so the writer is prepared before speaking with the interviewee; outstanding listening skills, which includes knowing when to stay quiet so the interviewee can speak; knowing how to find the story within the interviewee’s life that will create the backbone of the article; and the ability to find that special quality in the interviewee that will resonate with readers. You’ll find below some of the profiles I’ve written over the years about people and companies.
Jeff Hyslop: The Man of a Thousand Dances
by Lori Straus (Appeared in just dance! magazine, Summer 2014 issue) Store mannequin for 125 episodes. Opera ghost for 985 performances. Judge for countless dance competitions. Producer, choreographer, director, singer, actor, and dancer for almost 50 years. Can one person truly accomplish this much, and as a dancer, no less? Jeff Hyslop can and has […]
Raising the Roof on Their Own Terms
(This article was written for Heffner Motors, a Toyota and Lexus dealership in Ontario, for the local Chamber of Commerce magazine. Published December 2014.) In 1973, John Heffner had two options: raise the 32’ x 37’ roof and build a second floor up to it, or take down the roof, build the second floor, and […]
Grace Butler in the Spotlight
(This article was published in just dance! magazine, in the summer 2015 issue.) “Come rain, come shine, come snow, come sleet, the show must go on.” Most dancers know that phrase, and many treat it as a personal creed. The dedication to their art drives them to be on stage, on time, no matter what. […]
Jim Cuddy’s Gold Medal Connections
Jim Cuddy has been in the news a lot lately. After his single “Pull Me Through” was used for a montage of the history between figure skaters Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, it crashed the iTunes servers because of the surge in downloads. Also last month, he released his latest album, Constellation. And in the […]
Explore Dangerous Underwater Caves with NatGeo’s Kenny Broad
Waves lapping up on the beach, a creek babbling through a forest, or a river rushing into a lake: these are perhaps some of the most calming sounds for us. You’ll likely hear water in some sonic form on relaxation soundtracks, or you may even seek it out with a trip to the ocean. Florida, […]
What Is Flamenco Dance? Myriam Allard Answers
This blog post comes from the blog I write under Lori Wolf-Heffner, the name I use for my fiction writing. On that blog, I occasionally interview artists from different disciplines, including the performing arts. In this blog post, the interview is with Myriam Allard, a Flamenco dancer from Montreal.