An online home where I write, teach, publish, and explore
By Michael Downing Marie: Part One We had been waiting outside the apartments that morning for our Uber to arrive when a young woman who I'll call Marie stepped through the security doors and said to us, directly, "You're trespassing." "Huh?" I thought. Jackie and I looked at each other. "No they're not...no they're not,"... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing Toronto's Chinatown We stepped out of the subway, onto Dundas Street, turned left and walked straight into Chinatown. It was impressive: Clothing, jewelry, grocery, restaurants. They have it all. We stopped at a little souvenir place and bought some keychains and magnets for next to nothing and walked through several grocery stores,... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing Raised Canadian For the record, I am not a Canadian citizen. I was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, which is along the south shore of Lake Erie, making me a citizen of the United States. However, I began to learn something about myself when I moved north of Philly 2007: I have a... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing When we travel, we tend to visit book stores, music shops, and art galleries. We're both avid readers, so the pull of new titles is strong. As for music, we met in a band called Evolution Circus back in 2003--Jackie as the lead singer and me on percussion and backup vocals--so we're... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing It was a beautiful July morning when drove out of Union City, Pennsylvania, toward Buffalo, New York, across the Peace Bridge, and on to Wayne Gretzky Estate. We visited the Estate last year and enjoyed it very much, sampling whiskey and vodka offerings and dining at the beautiful Trius Restaurant, directly next... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing Downing, Michael, Travel Writing Slide Show, EAPSU Conference, Millersville, Fall 2024 Downing, Michael, EAPSU Presentation, Fall 2024Download
By Michael Downing I recently published an Open Educational Resource (OER) Journalism book through PA Adopt. 4_5_Downing_JournalismHandbook_PAADOPT PDFDownload 4_5_Downing_JournalismHandbook_PAADOPT WORDDownload
An Open Educational Resource for Journalism Students Michael J. Downing, Ph.D. A Member of The Pennsylvania Alliance for Design of Open Textbooks This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) as a part of PA-ADOPT, except where otherwise noted. Fifth Edition, 2024. NOTE: I'm conducting an experiment to... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing DRAFT I was naïve when I got started in the world of academic publishing and didn't know my field would be so territorial--because the people are generally kind—but academic fields are quite territorial. Profs take ownership of their fields and they don’t like it when you come onto their turf; they feel... Continue Reading →
By Michael Downing Edinburgh Edinburgh is magnificent. It was our favorite place on the trip. There is so much to see and do--and so much history. Edinburgh has been the capital of Scotland since 1437 (587+ years) and has been attacked dozens of times since any structure was first established on that titanic rock in... Continue Reading →
My Writing Wanderland 