Ben Eason, president of Creative Loafing Inc., has sold Creative Loafing of Greenville, S.C. , a non-AAN alt pub, to his mother, Debby Eason, founder of the chain; Lori Coon, publisher of the Greenville paper; and Kyle Sims, publisher of the Savannah, Ga., edition of Creative Loafing. Ben Eason says his mother now owns 51 percent of the Greenville paper and that he wants to concentrate on bigger markets. Also, former Loafing writer Greg Land joins Time magazine as an Atlanta correspondent.
Timothy Schaffert’s first novel is to be published by BlueHen, a new literary division of publishing giant Penguin Putnam, in June 2002. The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters is about sisters damaged by abandonment. Schaffert, managing editor of the Omaha Reader says his day job is like a baby squalling in the next room, "a distraction from creativity, certainly, but an important distraction."
Steve Jackson serves up a compelling expose of what happens when a sexual predator enters a teen chat room. Mike and Cassandra Harris of Colorado’s Jefferson County District Attorney's Crimes Against Children unit were among the first to set up stings of Internet predators, with Cassandra as bait, playing both boys and girls. “The advantage here, of course, over dailies is that instead of telling readers that these men get online and say bad things to children, I could put down in black-and-white what they say and how they say it ... hit the reader over the head with the reality of it,” Jackson tells AAN News in an e-mail.
"Twelve years is too long for a writer to stay anywhere, particularly in the field of alternative journalism," Greg Land says in his farewell column. He’s off to different pastures, leaving his spot at Creative Loafing to "new blood."
Mara Shalhoup got a lead on a story that's all-too-familiar, and nearly always ignored by the dailies. Tim Peck, a freelance computer guy, walked down the street from his home to get a carry-out burger at the Fox & Hounds. He left the premises in an ambulance with two broken legs after an altercation with off-duty Sheriff's Deputy Kelvin Smith. Creative Loafing's exclusive opens Deputy Smith's personnel file, and it's packed with similar incidents. Shalhoup spent a month researching and writing the story after waiting a month before Peck would agree to talk to her.
