About The Author

​Marj Lacey
PictureMarj Lacey

​If you’ve watched the photos scroll above, you might have concluded that I love to travel, and you would be right. I’ve managed to see quite a bit of the world during the past few years, and since I can't travel all the time, I developed a website where I post travelogues and favorite photos taken on my journeys. The pictures above are from those travel files, and they seemed an appropriate way to head up a page called "About the Author."  
 
Meanwhile, as politics in the States took a distressing turn and a pickleball injury sidelined me for way too long, I’ve given in to a compulsion to speak my piece about the political scene. My goal is to provide brief background on current ssues and express my opinions on the same. You won't find probing, in-depth coverage of politics here, but I hope this site occasionally piques your interest enough to explore some of these issues further.  

What's more, I hope some of you will send in thoughts of your own for possible inclusion on the "Readers Write" page. Go to "Your Turn" in the drop-down page for instructions on how to do that.  
My Background: I’ve had three distinct careers to date—in journalism, education, and counseling—and in a way, Voter Beat takes me back to where I started, working as a reporter/photographer on a small daily paper in the town where I grew up. It was the best job imaginable for that stage of life: no two days the same, a lot of independence but still part of a team, and an editor who had the knack of challenging and bringing out the best in young, green reporters. So now, here I am. I can’t say I’ve come full circle. Journalism will never be what it was when I started out—clattering teletypes, rigid deadlines, the vibration of the newsroom floor when the presses started up—but there are compensations. Don’t like the way things are going?  Want to express yourself? Just about anyone can start a website these days. There’s something very liberating in this. Here we go …

But first, just a word about the ads you'll find on this site: I have no control over them so they don't necessarily represent anything I'm encouraging you to buy or even anything I believe in. They seem to come and go with no recognizable rationale, and some   are quite appalling. They're put there by Google--with my permission, of course, but I don't prescreen them. If you see an ad that's a bit jarring in light of the content of the site ... oh, well! Just know I didn't put it there.