Sue Hertz

Write Choices: Elements of Nonfiction Storytelling helps writers cultivate their nonfiction storytelling skills by exploring the universal decisions writers confront when crafting factual narratives. Rather than isolating various forms of narrative nonfiction into categories or genres, Sue Hertz focuses on examining the common choices all true storytellers encounter, whether they are writing memoir, literary journalism, personal essays, or travel stories. Write Choices also includes digital storytelling. No longer confined to paper, today's narrative nonfiction writers must learn to write for electronic media, which may also demand photos, videos, and/or audio. Integrating not only her own insights and experience as a journalist, nonfiction book author, and writing instructor, but also those of other established nonfiction storytellers, both print and digital, Hertz aims to guide emerging writers through key decisions to tell the best story possible. Blending how-to instruction with illuminating examples and commentaries drawn from original interviews with master storytellers, Write Choices is a valuable resource for all nonfiction writers, from memoirists to essayists to literary journalists, at any stage of their career.

Through character and conflict, this narrative nonfiction book takes readers into the human drama at the heart of the abortion wars. Hertz chronicles during a turbulent year how protests and politics affect the women seeking reproductive choice and those providing it at New England’s largest clinic.

As millions of older workers have fled the workplace during the past two years, a strange thing has happened: few have declared themselves retired. In this Washington Post story, seven Baby Boomers explain the reasons behnd and the impact of their job departures and the question of whether they will return to the work force. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/25/great-resignation-older-workers/

Do we tempt tattered ligaments and torched egos by pushing the envelope? Trying something new? Or do we stick with what makes us feel masterful. A personal essay on risk and aging. 

London may be the Coffee Capital of Europe, but during an 11-month stay in the UK city, I struggled to find home brew satisfaction. My quest to find dark roast beans took me all over the city to all sorts of coffee purveyors to listen to all sorts of lectures on water temperature and roasting times and the importance of never, ever, ever letting coffee sit in the vessel in which it was made. What I learned is that while tea remains a national staple, coffee has become an obsession -- every day, the UK drinks over 55 million cups of coffee – that the epicenter is London, that thousands of hours of effort go into every mug of specialty coffee. Most important, I learned what it means to travel, to stretch the comfort zone, and whether  knowledge really can breed appreciation.  https://suehertz.medium.com/couture-beans-of-london-4a1c63cba360

Alison Hardy has dedicated her career to saving antique windows

Travel essay on the wisdom of biking in northern Quebec pre-season

Travel essay published in the anthology "Around the World."

A profile of life coach Cheryl Richardson, whose lectures and books have made her an Oprah favorite and a national voice for taking better care of ourselves

How does one survive biking in the legendary Cambridge, a city of winding, narrow streets and crowds and alpha drivers?

Boston Magazine cover story on the sandwich generation

Thinness is equated with beauty, success, and self-control. Obesity, with poor self-control, ugliness, and lack of intelligence. The very notion that a fat person may be healthy is almost outrageous to most people. But after months of research and observations, writer Sue Hertz concludes that yes, you can be fit and fat.

The author explores a lifelong ambition – learning to sing on key. Can she? Will she?

With the help of an antiques dealer, a nutritionist, and a medieval scholar, Carol Shea-Porter, who had never held public office, beat the Republican incumbent to represent her New Hampshire district in the U.S. Congress.

Boston Magazine essay about the disappearing family meal.

Perhaps the knee isn't made for the lives we lead.

The challenges to a city's identify when it is caught between preserving the past and its nautical history while creating a vibrant seaport that lures tourists and new residents alike.

The New Hampshire Historical Society's regal home in Concord, one of the state's most renowned structures, celebrates its 100th birthday. The path to the creation of this striking building, though, was far from easy.