[HTML1] Susun Weed interviews Ericka Blount Danois, journalist, author and educator.
Ericka Blount Danois, an award winning journalist, has worked as a writer since she began as a stringer at The Philadelphia Tribune in 1993. As a starving college student, she walked into the editor’s office at The Tribune without an appointment and asked for the opportunity to write. Since then her work has been published in newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The City Sun, The Atlantic City Press, and The Baltimore Sun. And in magazines such as The Crisis, Baltimore Magazine, Sports Illustrated, JazzTimes, The Source, One World, Heart and Soul Magazine, Vibe and as a stringer for ESPN, the magazine.
Ericka has interviewed and profiled artists such as James Mtume, Quincy Jones, Jay Z, LL cool J, Nas, Olu Dara, Rene McLean, Jackie McLean and Horace Silver and most recently followed a group of farmers to Cuba where she interviewed President Fidel Castro. Ericka graduated from Columbia’s School of Journalism in 2004. She works as the DC City editor for Uptown Magazine and is a professor in the Communications Department of Morgan State University.
In 2002, Ericka Blount Danois was nursing a newborn daughter, working as a staff writer at The City Paper, and had gone through several career highs such as her 2-hour exclusive interview with Cuba’s President Fidel Castro; and career lows as she watched city marshals shut down the black-owned newspaper where she worked as a staff writer for two years.
At that point, Ericka found herself at a crossroads. She had taken time off from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism to work and take care of her children (a 2-year-old and a newborn) and was being told by the school that she would have to return by the fall or she would have to begin her course load from scratch.
There were many obstacles. She worked full-time. Columbia was in New York and she lived in Baltimore. She had two young children. Her husband traveled for four days at a time for his job at US Airways. A lay-off from her job provided her with a mixed blessing and the answer to her situation. She finished her final two courses at Columbia, traveling back and forth to New York by airplane with free flight benefits weekly. In 2004, she graduated, walking across the stage with her two daughters in tow.
Like so many women, Ericka struggles to balance busy work schedules with a fulfilling home life. But she’s learned that having each day be different and not following a set schedule has actually allowed her to manage the stress. And in the end, she has become successful while transcending racism, sexism and showing the world her love of the written and spoken word.
Susun Weed, guest host at WomensRadio.com is the author of the acclaimed best seller Wise Woman Herbal Series. Her health books for women offer Wise Woman approaches to common women’s ailments including menopause, childbearing, fertility, cancer prevention and treatment, breast health, and reproductive health. Susun Weed offers women safe and easy solutions to common problems, visit her at SusunWeed.com for 3000 pages of Wise Woman wisdom and wit.
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