Nancy Rommelman is a fascinating writer and an equaintance: she has a lovely column on the freelance (don't say free-fall) life here. A quote:
How do you find your stories?
"I sometimes find story ideas in the Metro section of the newspaper, one-inch items with headlines like, “Man Nails Girlfriend’s Fish to Floor.” The short-shrift given to these stories will spark my wondering, what is this about? Usually the story doesn’t make complete sense; I want to look more deeply. I wrote about mushroom foragers in Alaska after reading one line about them in Bon Appetit. The reference started a little itch that I needed to scratch; the scratch bloomed to a topic, the topic to a pitch, the pitch to a story. Follow that itch."
I love that she writes both fiction and non. Gotta love those smarts. Here's a book of her stories from an interesting Portland-based press called Dymaxicon.
Kit Stolz 