A former general arts staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, Lynne Heffley is a versatile freelance writer available for writing projects in the areas of the arts, general topics and corporate communications, including biographical profiles, annual reports, fundraising letters and promotional material. Lynne established the Times' regular critical coverage of children’s arts and entertainment, specializing in children's music and theater for youth, and is currently senior children's music critic for the Parents' Choice Foundation. She is an effective interviewer and communicator of ideas and creative missions, a go-to problem-solver and a collegial collaborator.

Professional Experience

Freelance Writer

General arts features, children's arts and entertainment reviews, corporate projects      2008-Present

•  Children’s music and audio book criticism for the nonprofit Parents’ Choice Foundation. Theater features for Center Theatre Group’s Performances Magazine, Los Angeles Times Community Newspapers. Feature writing, Los Angeles Times Calendar, Arroyo Monthly Magazine/Pasadena Weekly, Patch.com. Annual report author and magazine feature writer for the AbilityFirst non-profit social services organization. Annual report features, promotional and/or fundraising materials for non-profits Harriett Buhai for Family Law, Braille Institute, Gabriella Axelrod Education Foundation, Pacific Asia Consortium in Employment (PACE). Biographical profiles for singer/songwriter/NPR commentator Bill Harley, the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law, AbilityFirst. Book reviews for Kirkus Discoveries.                   

Staff Writer

Los Angeles Times – Los Angeles, CA                                                       

General arts reporting, feature writing, reviewing                                         
•    Definitive profiles of leading and emerging playwrights, directors, designers, composers, musicians, dancers, visual artists and photographers.  A sampling: late iconic post-World War II abstract artist Lee Mullican, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote, Tony Award-winning theater costume designer Catherine Zuber, color photography pioneer William Christenberry, Oscar-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), noted avant-garde cellist Robert Een.
•    Initiated comprehensive report on ballet injuries, advances in treatment and prevention techniques.
•    Caught early ballroom dancing trend with Calendar Weekend cover story.
•    Periodic theater reviewer.
•    Maintained weekly theater budgets, set up photography sessions and coordinated hand-out photographs for arts features and reviews.
•    Subbed periodically for Deputy Calendar Editor in overseeing Morning Report, a daily entertainment news column. Canvassed wire services, selected items to be used, edited writers' copy, determined the column’s lead photo.

Other Los Angeles Times Positions

Theater Listings Editor                               
•  Streamlined listings process through computer system updates over nearly two decades; singled out by editors and the theater community for comprehensiveness and accuracy.       

Children's TV Reviewer and Reporter                                                        
•    Analysis of children’s programming through features, news and reviews.
•    In-depth coverage of such iconic hits as "Sesame Street," "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," “Barney,” “Blue’s Clues” and “Teletubbies,” “That’s So Raven.”  
•    Definitive profiles of Fred Rogers, obits and appreciations of Rogers, Jim Henson, Shari Lewis.
•    Family programming panelist, convention of National Association of High School Journalists.

General TV Coverage                                                                                        
•  Miscellaneous features and reviews of TV movies, women’s and family social and health issue documentaries and nature shows.

Children's Arts and Entertainment Critic and Reporter                                                                       •    Spearheaded the first regular critical coverage of local, national and international adult children’s theater at a major metropolitan newspaper.
•    Perceived by the Los Angeles theater community to have raised the bar for the professionalism of theater for young audiences through considered reviews.
•    Created two weekly columns and daily and Sunday features as part of the growing children’s beat. Included regular coverage of children's music, arts programs, video/DVD.
•    Profiled children’s music artists, including the field’s first superstars. Reported the major labels’ experiment with independent children’s artists and the crossover of adult music artists’ into children’s music, spotlighting children’s music as a growth industry.

Additional writing samples at http://articles/latimes.com/writers/lynne-heffley