Uncategorized – Page 4 – Christopher Wink

Can Philadelphia retain its best college graduates?: media industry looks bleak

During recent weeks backpacking Europe, I have had a great deal of time to think about my future – mostly on long train rides between the great cities of Western history, Vienna and Berlin, Brussels and Prague. I want very badly the opportunity to write, to tell stories in a resurgent metropolis.

Right now, I am trying my very best to make that Philadelphia – the home of my alma mater, Temple University, from which I graduated in May.

Since the world seems to be in financial meltdown, it might seem silly for me to question the sluggish hiring of me and my peers, but I can’t help but wonder if Philadelphia is on the road to better retention of graduates from its many, varied and respected colleges and universities.

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Freelance: Retired poet-priest in Irish Echo

My story on Philadelphia priest John McNamee in the Irish Echo on Oct. 8, 2008.

This story appeared in the Oct. 8, 2008 edition of the Irish Echo, the country’s oldest Irish American newspaper.

PHILADELPHIA – One of the most celebrated Irish Catholic priests in the country has returned home.

After nearly 30 years serving his native Philadelphia archdiocese, author and poet John McNamee retired in June and retreated for six weeks to a friend’s house in Ireland. He returned home last week [Aug 30] and now is ready to decide what will be the next stage of his storied life. What that will entail even he doesn’t yet know.

“I am not going to put an agenda on myself,” McNamee, 75, said. After a lifetime wearing a priest’s collar, he walks a decidedly more secular path than the religious one he has come to know.

“I am anxious to breach those two worlds as best as I can,” he told the Irish Echo in a phone interview.

If the success of his writing career is any indication, he will.

Read the rest on Page 10 of this Irish Echo digital archive.

You may recognize the cast of characters from an earlier story I did for Philadelphia Weekly, which focused on McNamee’s replacement Kevin Lawrence.

I heart John Baer: Move Pennsylvania Society weekend from NYC to Philly

Ed Rendell and others at 2006 Pennsylvania Society dinner in New York City.

One of the largest and, admittedly, one of the many embarrassments of old Philadelphia is that the annual Pennsylvania Society dinner is held in midtown Manhattan.

It seems like a suggestion that Pennsylvania’s largest city – the city of firsts, the workshop of the world, the first great city of the United States – isn’t good enough. Or as Fred Anton, head of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, told eminent Daily News columnist John Baer, Philly isn’t “exotic” enough. His recent most column lambasted the 109-year-old celebration:

Cancel next month’s Pennsylvania Society weekend in New York City, or curtail it, or work on moving it to its home state.

In the worst economy since the Great Depression, with 1.2 million jobs lost this year, with state unemployment at 5.7 percent, the highest rate since right after Gov. Rendell took office in ’03, with the city facing job cuts and a $1 billion shortfall, it just strikes me as a tad unseemly to, you know, party hearty. [Source]

But, this deal is even more twisted than even Baer acknowledges, though I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I was once in a group photo with him.

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Thoughts on City Paper cover story on Philly porn star

So turns out one of today’s biggest, brightest and youngest upcoming porn stars lives in South Philadelphia.

And really, where else could Stoya live.

Philadelphia City Paper devoted its latest cover story to her. Nearly 5,000 words, friends. Writer Matt Stroud is getting beaten up a bit in the blogosphere and on the story comments – though some are complimentary – and there’s been some buzz around it, so I gave it a read, though I’m currently out of Philly.

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Election Day

Halloween

Earlier this year I posted a column I wrote for The Temple News, the college newspaper for which I worked while still an undergraduate at Temple University, about ghosts on its Main Campus. It was popular then, so why not now, just one short year later?

Temple has been built on the backs of the dead. It’s late October, and we think about the old, the hidden and the dead. Temple University has its ghosts, indeed.

This is its beginning. Read the piece in its entirety or see other writing of mine here.

Philadelphia foods: The ones you know and those you don't

Philadelphia regional foods packed for overnight shipping by Taste of Philadelphia are displayed in Folcroft, Pa., near Philadelphia, Tuesday, Pa., March 13, 2007. Americans transplanted from their hometowns are scouring the World Wide Web to find the comfort food they crave _ and it's created a cottage industry for entrepreneurs willing to deliver across state lines (AP Photo by Matt Rourke).

I was back in Philadelphia last month before leaving for Europe and inspired me to write a handful of posts, from my humble suggestions for the Philadelphia Inquirer to some lessons from an internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal – and the 10 Philadelphia books you have to read.

Here’s another, my missing the delicious food specialties of the original first city of America,

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Philadelphia foods: The ones you know and those you don't

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Self-promotion in a world of self-promoters

Are you ready to be your biggest fan?

If you want to succeed in media or any other venue where your name is your brand – comedy, acting and more – then you better be ready. Retain that humility in person-to-person interaction, but forget about it when you near the professional realm.

In the spring, I was proud to be named among the 100 most promising young journalists in the country by UWire – how thorough the list was and whether I truly deserved the honor are for another discussion entirely.

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