Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Stuertz.
Mark, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always been in publishing. Though I worked in restaurant kitchens throughout high school and most of college, I managed bookstores in my final year before taking a sales rep position with Random House. I covered a vast territory with the publisher, one radiating out from St. Louis and Kansas City. But life on the road got to be a grind. So I quit my job, sold all of my stuff, and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be closer to my girlfriend (who was also in publishing), and to focus on becoming a writer (I sucked at sales).
During the day, I pounded the pavement, scouring the city for freelance writing gigs. At night I worked as a security guard in a county hospital emergency room in a crack neighborhood. That experience was a blur of gunshots, stabbings, suicide-by-self-immolation, domestic violence, and overdoses. I did everything from disarming junkies, to moving bodies, to delivering babies. At midnight during a full moon, I saw a guy turn into a werewolf in the ER waiting room (no, really). I called for backup on that one.
I quit that adrenalin rush after I got steady work writing features for a film and TV trade publication and reporting for a small city newspaper. I did features on horror movie special effects artists, and another on a guy who composed film scores from MIDI samples generated by striking the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge with a hammer. Eventually, I landed a position as managing editor for a restaurant trade publication. That pounding of pavement paid off: I was covering chefs and restaurants in one of the most prestigious culinary cities in the world.
After marrying my girlfriend I took a position creating consumer and trade publications for the Wine Institute, the association of California wineries—a very different kind of adrenalin rush. Sure there were endless tastings, winery events, and vineyard tours. But there was also the grinding work of deciphering studies and policy papers, and the meetings and fundraisers for state and national politicians. It was here I got a good hard taste of how Washington works (or doesn’t).
Over this time my wife, who had since migrated to the video gaming industry, was being pressured to move to Dallas to open up new retail markets. After six years with WI, I was ready for a change. So I quit my job and went back to pounding the pavement—this time in the Big D. And without the seedy night work.
I contributed to D magazine, Texas Monthly, the Dallas Business Journal, and Dallas Family as well as the Wine Enthusiast and Wine Business Monthly. I also started writing short fiction and was pretty successful at it, earning a couple of national awards.
After a year of freelance work, I landed a position with the Dallas Observer as their restaurant critic. I loved reviewing restaurants, but I found in depth reporting and feature writing more fulfilling. I’m intensely curious and was often surprised at what people will reveal when you demonstrate sincere interest and actually listen to them.
But after 12 years, I grew weary of the restaurant grind and in 2008—just before the financial crisis, I resigned my post at the Observer and started my own company: Word Jockey. Unfortunately, my wife turned out to be a casualty of that economic upheaval so we were both in roughly the same precarious spot at the same time. Trying times. But we both made it through.
Today with Word Jockey I primarily focus on corporate work creating content for companies in high tech, the automotive industry, food service, insurance, aerospace, oil and gas, and healthcare. I compose white papers, web content, brochures, studies, speeches, video scripts, and ghost write books. I also shoot and edit video and photographic images. I rarely get bylines anymore, but frankly I don’t miss it too much.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Deadlines are always a challenge. I’ve pulled more all-nighters than I care to recall. I have a deep and enduring relationship with black coffee.
Writing is also very risky. I got more than a few death threats over reviews or stories I published. Back in 2000 the founder of Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House sued me for libel. He took issue with a profile I composed about him and his business dealings. The case went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which promptly dismissed it. Fortunately, the same legal team that successfully defended Oprah in her tussle with the Texas cattle industry backed me in my legal scrum.
I’m a bit anal-retentive. And that episode hammered home the value of meticulously documenting each and every assertion and allegation you proclaim in your prose. Unfortunately, that discipline is disappearing in the fevered quest for speed and clicks.
Word Jockey – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Word Jockey is a writing, research and investigative service for corporations, businesses, and community and spiritual leaders, exploring innovative thought and action. The result is a potent portfolio of articles, white papers, scripts, speeches, books, and web content.
Word Jockey is fueled by a passion for learning and discovery. I love telling stories; digging down to the pith to retrieve the essence of a person, organization, or idea. My overarching mission is to craft powerful, concise prose from complex concepts; to express these elements in powerfully imaginative ways and in the process, refresh the knowledge we already know but have largely forgotten.
I especially love implementing this philosophy in books. I ghost wrote a book for a Fort Worth entrepreneur who has a fascinating back-story. He went from being homeless, living out of his Volkswagen Beetle, to earning millions in the junkyard business—an enterprise inspired by that very car. He did it by implementing an ingenious computerized inventory and targeted marketing system that wrung massive inefficiencies from the business.
I’m currently writing a book for the headmaster and executive director of a private elementary school in South Dallas. He has been generating remarkable success with children in this disadvantaged community for more than 30 years. He achieves this success by developing and implementing innovations on powerful timeless principals animated by faith.
My latest book, “Secret Dallas: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure,” uncovers largely unknown idiosyncrasies and long forgotten tales of the Big D. The large portfolio of original photographs is supplemented by largely unseen historical images that add to the sense of time and place. This project completely shifted by perspective on the city while deepening my appreciation for its people and their accomplishments.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
If I can clearly express an idea or animate an individual or an organization with prose that entices and generates the desired results, I’ve achieved success.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.linkedin.com/in/markstuertz
- Phone: 214-929-4423
- Email: mark@markstuertz.net
- Twitter: @writingtrifecta
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
