I used to live in a graveyard, in the caretaker’s mansion that stood next to a shuttered hot dog factory. It was quiet and, with a chapel off the foyer and a former morgue in the basement, offered some quirky inspiration. The ideal spot for launching a writing career. I turned an upstairs room into an office and wrote articles at no charge for a free weekly until I had amassed enough clips to sell my first query to a reputable business journal.

Early in my reporting career, I learned that stories are always ripe for plucking. While running errands one afternoon I bumped into the principal of an affluent high school, a man I had interviewed often. When I pressed him on why he looked frustrated, he said it was time to come clean about a major concern and he wanted me to make it public. That article touched off a yearlong, heavily chronicled battle between the principal, who accused teachers of doing too little to educate minority students, and a faculty that fought the accusation furiously. In the end, a community rallied to support both sides, test scores rose, and the principal, who had been known as a change agent in his previous school district, left to head another school in another state. Besides earning me my first national journalism award, the experience continues to reinforce the value of building trust with my sources and clients ― and using that trust to relay information in the most honest and responsible way possible.

On the personal side, my adventurous spirit has taken me to far-flung places that have changed the way I view the world and my place in it. But I am always grateful to return home where, through yoga and idiosyncrasy, I work obsessively to maintain a sense of order and balance ― an innate impulse I attribute to being born on the middle day of the week on the middle day of the year.

My mantra: Know what you want. Work hard to get it. Accept what comes next.

I live with my husband and daughter in beautiful upstate New York, and truly believe there are few things better on this earth than a chewy chocolate chip cookie.