About Colleen

Colleen Shaddox worked for daily newspapers (You remember them.) until it became clear that the suits were abandoning journalism’s traditional mission of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. She worked in a soup kitchen, did university public relations, raised funds for kids in state care. Finally, she ended up back in journalism (with a bit of fiction, drama and advocacy thrown in) as a freelancer.

The term freelancer, by the way, originally referred to knights not bound to any king. They were at liberty to choose their fights, though of course they had to pay for their own health insurance. So Colleen tries to fight the good fight by writing about people who are getting a raw deal. She’s especially interested in the intersection of health care and social justice. It’s more of a head-on collision than an intersection, actually.

She also writes personal essays about faith, dogs, food and other things that make life worth living. Her essays have won awards from the National Newspaper Association and the Catholic Press Association.

Credits include National Public Radio, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Woman’s Day, PARADE and many others.