Here are a few of my writing samples, ranging from human interest stories to business profiles to hard news reporting.
TERCEIRA BY MUD FINDING THE SECRET PLACES ON AZORES ISLAND THROUGH MUD By Heide Brandes The wheels of the Land Rover Defender are spinning uselessly in mud...
OKLAHOMA CITY/TULSA, Okla. — Oklahoma parent Matt Reynolds backs a teachers' strike that has shut schools statewide, but each day it drags on is another he h...
Eastern Tennessee is home to Knoxville, a big city with a small town heart that offers up the perfect mix of outdoor adventure, history, exciting places to v...
Zero to Adventure Rider in 96 Hours! “Clutch! Clutch! Clutch,” yells my coach as I begin rolling backwards. I’m 12 feet up a steep grade when I hear the or...
Jim Couch, a network engineer in Oklahoma City who also lives in the city, along with his wife, learned early that if they ever wanted to switch their career...
It was a fortune teller who informed 7-year-old Jasmine Dolores Careen Burchell of her future. In 1941, Jasmine had but a few coins to spend at a country fa...
THE TWO-LEGGED PREDATORS Attacks on the trail are rare, but are you prepared? By Heide Brandes I was deep within the quiet wilderness of the Buffalo River T...
CHANGING HEARTS AND MINDS ABOUT GREAT WHITE SHARKS How South Africa's Shark Cage Dive Industry Drives Conservation, Despite Protests By Heide Brandes “SHAR...
OKLAHOMA CITY -- In late summer 2016, heroin users were dropping dead at an astonishing rate in just one week in one small Ohio county. That county reported ...
Scotland, mid-19th century. An intruder has been spotted at night on the grounds of Lammermoor Castle, home of Enrico Ashton. Normanno, the captain of the gu...
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Father Stanley Rother, a priest with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, knew his name was on a kill list. In 1981, Fr. Rother had spent 13 y...
Things You Need to Know Before Visiting Nicaragua That Guide Books Won’t Tell You By Heide Brandes The temperature was a thick and moist 90 degrees in Rivas...
This was a collaborative travel project with filmmaker Dennis Spielman of Uncovering Oklahoma where I played host to a travel piece. https://youtu.be/FtC2mVJ...
Part II of a collaborative travel piece with Uncovering Oklahoma.
LYNCHBURG, Tenn.- I’m not drunk, but I should be. Surrounded by millions of gallons of some of the world’s most famous Tennessee whiskey, I am as sober as a...
As the morning sun rose above the old cobblestone paths in Kaleici, Antalya — the old section of town in the Turkish city — I walked alongside the Roman Empe...
In ancient times, the Chickasaw Indians were revered as the “Spartans of the Lower Mississippi Valley.” An agrarian tribe, the Chickasaws boasted of a lively...
By Heide Brandes In 2012, more than 686,000 children in America were victims of abuse or maltreatment. Of those, 1,600 died from abuse and neglect, accordin...
When Steve Soroosh owned a used car dealership in 2012, he learned the hard way that even when a vehicle looks perfect, it can be fatally flawed. Buying car...
From 2008 to 2013, America was hooked on the AMC series Breaking Bad, a dark show about a chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer who begins producing a...
