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Diana Marcum

Diana Marcum (1963 – August 9, 2023) was an American writer and journalist, focused especially on California's Central Valley. She was a 2018 Nieman Fellow, and won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, for her series "Scenes from California's Dust Bowl".

Diana Marcum
Born1963
Sonoma County, California
DiedAugust 9, 2023 (age 60)
Fresno, California
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist

Early life and education

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Marcum was born in Sonoma County, California. She attended but did not graduate from Crafton Hills College.[1]

Career

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Marcum worked as an assistant at The San Bernardino Sun as a young woman, then became a reporter. She was a reporter and a columnist at The Fresno Bee,[2] and was on the staff of the Los Angeles Times from 2011 to 2022. She often wrote about California's Central Valley and the people and communities who live there, but she also wrote two book-length travel memoirs, about the Azores and Belize.[3][4]

Marcum won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2015, for "offering nuanced portraits of lives affected by the state's drought, bringing an original and empathic perspective to the story" in her Los Angeles Times series "Scenes from California's Dust Bowl".[5] She was awarded a Nieman Fellowship in 2018.[6] "If we only write about the bad, that’s not a complete picture.There is a lot of perseverance and faith and friendship and humor. There’s everything. It’s a big, complex world of good and bad. And the good counts", she explained about her storytelling in 2015.[7]

Publications

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Books

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  • The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores (2018)[8]
  • The Fallen Stones: Chasing Butterflies, Discovering Mayan Secrets, and Looking for Hope Along the Way (2021)[9]

Articles and essays

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  • "On the front lines" (1994, about medical emergency personnel in the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake)[10]
  • "Bruised, not broken, by trek" (2006)[11]
  • "Closure of historic temple in Fresno dismays Japanese American community" (2011)[12]
  • "Orange food stand to be reborn" (2012)[13]
  • "Scenes from California's Dust Bowl" (2014)[14]
  • "Let the Interlopers In" (2016)[15]
  • "An American Road Trip Through Troubled Times" (2021)[16]
  • "In the Ashes of the Devastating Sierra Fire, A Flower Farm Blooms" (2022)[17]
  • "A Cambodian American police officer helps his community heal and look forward" (2022)[18]

Personal life

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Marcum died in 2023, at the age of 60, in Fresno, California, after surgery to remove a brain tumor.[19]

References

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  1. ^ "Diana Marcum, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, dies at 60". Nieman Foundation. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  2. ^ Tehee, Joshua (2023-08-13). "Diana Marcum, former Fresno Bee reporter, dies at 60". The Fresno Bee. pp. A1. Retrieved 2023-12-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Daniel, Alice (2021-12-21). "Fresno writer Diana Marcum's second travel memoir revolves around Blue Morpho Butterflies and Belize". KVPR | Valley Public Radio. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  4. ^ Ward, James. "'The Tenth Island' memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winner inspired by Tulare County Portuguese". Visalia Times-Delta. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  5. ^ "Diana Marcum of Los Angeles Times" The Pulitzer Prizes, 2015.
  6. ^ Accardi, Millicent Borges (2018-09-25). "Straight from Pico: An interview with the author of The Tenth Island". Portuguese American Journal. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  7. ^ Kiernan, Louise (April 30, 2015). "A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winner Diana Marcum". Nieman Storyboard. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  8. ^ Marcum, Diana (2018). The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores. Amazon Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5039-4131-1.
  9. ^ "Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Diana Marcum". Zócalo Public Square. 2021-06-17. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  10. ^ Marcum, Diana (1994-01-23). "On the Front Lines". The Desert Sun. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-12-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Marcum, Diana (2006-09-03). "Bruised, not broken, by trek". The Fresno Bee. pp. A1, B5. Retrieved 2023-12-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Marcum, Diana (August 1, 2011). "Closure of historic temple in Fresno dismays Japanese American community". Los Angeles Times, via Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 2020-09-27. Retrieved 2023-12-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  13. ^ Marcum, Diana (2012-06-16). "Orange food stand to be reborn". The Los Angeles Times. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-12-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Scenes from California's Dust Bowl". Los Angeles Times. 2014-12-10. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  15. ^ Marcum, Diana (Fall 2016). "Let the Interlopers In". Nieman Reports. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  16. ^ Marcum, Diana (2021-10-01). "An American road trip through troubled times". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  17. ^ "In the ashes of a devastating Sierra fire, a flower farm blooms". Los Angeles Times. 2022-08-15. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  18. ^ Marcum, Diana (2022-07-12). "A Cambodian American police officer helps his community heal and look forward". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  19. ^ Matos, Carolina (2023-08-13). "In Memoriam: Diana Marcum was one of us". Portuguese American Journal. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
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