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Robrt Pela on Muck Rack

Robrt Pela

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Phoenix
As seen in: Phoenix Magazine, MarketWatch, OpenTable, Phoenix New Times, KJZZ-FM (Phoenix, AZ), Cannabis Culture, Phoenix Home & Garden Magazine, Southwest Contemporary

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Robrt Pela’s Biography

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Robrt Pela is an award-winning writer known primarily as an arts critic for Phoenix New Times, where he has written a weekly column these past 26 years. His radio essays air each week on National Public Radio affiliate KJZZ, and he’s worked as a writer and editor for national and local magazines including Psychology Today, The Advocate, Phoenix Home and Garden, and Men’s Fitness. His last published book was Filthy, a biography of the film director John Waters. He curates art at galleries in Pho…

Robrt Pela’s Journalist Portfolio

Memory Lane: A Mother and Son's Struggle Toward a "Dementia-Friendly Ame...

Memory Lane: A Mother and Son's Struggle Toward a "Dementia-Friendly Ame...

I've cared for my elderly mother, who is 92 and has late stage Alzheimer's disease, for more than a decade. I…

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No Place Like Home: Navigating Arizona's Elder-Care System

No Place Like Home: Navigating Arizona's Elder-Care System

In this sequel to my MEMORY LANE cover story, about my mother's late-stage Alzheimer's disease, I consider th…

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Ruthless: A Long-Lost Confession Letter May Finally Tell the Real Story of Winnie Ruth Judd

Ruthless: A Long-Lost Confession Letter May Finally Tell the Real Story of Winnie Ruth Judd

Winnie Ruth Judd is the stuff of legend. She murdered her two best friends one night in 1931, the story goes,…

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Baggage Claim: One Writes About Murderess Winnie Ruth Judd at One's Own Expense

Baggage Claim: One Writes About Murderess Winnie Ruth Judd at One's Own Expense

This sequel to my previous cover story, about murderer Winnie Ruth Judd, "solves" the 80-plus-year-old murder…

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Why Alternative Theater Is Flourishing in Metro Phoenix

Why Alternative Theater Is Flourishing in Metro Phoenix

In the first scene of this three-act play - call it Who's Afraid of Alternative Theater? or maybe Revenge of …

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Faux Paul

Faux Paul

Paul Wilson --and his gloriously weird Phoenix home -- are trapped in 1957. And he wouldn't have it any other…

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Articles

Culture Club: Blaise of Glory

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By Robrt Pela Verified
| Phoenix Magazine Verified
Jazz doyenne Blaise Lantana worked at KJZZ for 32 years. Photo courtesy Blaise Lantana Blaise Lantana and I were trying to do a radio interview about how she’s retiring from her nighttime hosting job at KJZZ, the local National Public Radio affiliate. People kept interrupting. “Something’s not right here,” one of the KJZZ tech guys said when he stopped by the studio where Lantana and I were working. He pointed to where I was sitting behind the mixing board.
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Studio Session: Lori McMinn

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By Robrt Pela Verified
| Phoenix Magazine Verified
by Robrt Pela | photos by Jill McNamara When clay artist Lori McMinn decided to make ceramic bowls from local cactus, the first thing she did was to phone the Arizona Department of Agriculture. “They assured me that a cactus lying in the street is considered garbage, and I could take it home with me,” she recalls.
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Culture Club: Crazy Little Thing Called Writing

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By Robrt Pela Verified
| Phoenix Magazine Verified
“Writing’s a lonely business,” the poet Cindi Reiss confided the other day. “It’s helpful not to feel like you’re the only one doing it.” We were talking about the Phoenix Writers Club, the 100-year-old organization of which Reiss is president. The club was founded in 1926 by a group of women whose membership in the Arizona Press Club had been denied because, well, they were female.
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Interview

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What was your first job as a journalist?

I launched my own newspaper when I was 23 years old. I owned and operated this newspaper for ten years.

Have you ever used a typewriter?

Yes. In the good old days. I much prefer a word processor, for the record.

Who's your favorite fictional journalist?

Charles Foster Kane