Meeting your idols: Dianna Heitz on John Elder Robison

I enjoyed this article today from Northwestern University’s Medill Reports about the joyful moments of a life in online journalism. Dianna Heitz describes the rush of approaching and interviewing one of her writing idols, John Elder Robison, author of Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s.

I emailed the author’s publicist on a whim, thinking I’d have to wait weeks to get a response. About an hour after I sent the email, the author called me on my cell phone. And once again, I bounced around like a kid who had a bit too much sugar.

Dianna also has a great piece up on the Examiner today about the effect Cafe Press merchandise sales are having on the 2008 election. Here’s a sample:

Embracing the interactivity of modern media, CafePress lets customers submit designs for everything from shirts to hats to underwear. It has received more than 1.2 million designs for Obama products, while those for Clinton and John McCain combined barely break 1 million.

Dianna Heitz is profiled on the Loyola University website here.