A Reporter Reflects

A Reporter Reflects began as essays Brian Duffy posted on his blog about living in a nursing home during a pandemic. Significantly expanded and revised, the memoir contrasts Brian’s present situation with his life before he suffered a stroke in 2014. Brian was a reporter for The Miami Herald, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, editor of U.S. News & World Report and managing editor for news at National Public Radio. In Washington he covered the FBI and the CIA. He shared newspaper bylines with Bob Woodward and Carl Hiaasen, and knew and/or interviewed many famous people, from Muhammad Ali to James Comey to Madeleine Albright. As a journalist he traveled to Haiti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Mozambique and elsewhere.

The book is divided between alternating sections of present tense nursing home stories and past tense stories of Brian’s life, with the sections arranged more or less chronologically. The contrast between the two sections is stark, which gives the book a powerful human-interest angle. After rising to the top of his profession, Brian now can’t walk unaided and his fine motor skills are gone, so he can’t type or write and needs to dictate his work into his phone.

In addition to being chock-full of fascinating stories, A Reporter Reflects is an inspiring testament to the human spirit and the refusal to give up in the face of adversity.

Brian Duffy was a reporter for The Miami Herald, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, editor of U.S. News & World Report and managing editor for news at National Public Radio. In Washington he covered the FBI and the CIA. Duffy shared newspaper bylines with Bob Woodward and Carl Hiaasen, and knew and/or interviewed many famous people, from Muhammad Ali to James Comey to Madeleine Albright. As a journalist he traveled to Haiti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Mozambique and elsewhere. He is the author of a novel, Head Count, and co-author of four nonfiction books. Duffy has received numerous professional awards, among them the Harvard University Goldsmith Award for Investigative Journalism, the Overseas Press Club Award (three times), the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Reporting, the National Headliner Award, and the Heywood Broun Award. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.

Tom Hazuka has published a memoir, If You Turn to Look Back, the novels The Road to the Island, In the City of the Disappeared and Last Chance for First, seventy short stories and two books of nonfiction, both co-written with C.J. Jones. He has edited or co-edited ten anthologies, including Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Funny, Flash Nonfiction Funny, Sudden Flash Youth, A Celestial Omnibus, You Have Time for This, Flash Nonfiction Food and Operation Panic: Cold War Stories of the Atomic Bomb (forthcoming in 2024). Tom is also a singer-songwriter; links to his writing and original songs can be found at tomhazuka.com. He taught fiction writing at Central Connecticut State University for many years.