Once in a blue moon, I find I need to write a press release about myself. Here’s the latest, which I’m writing for my local newspaper.

 Freelance Journalist Wins WA Press Association Awards

Freelance Journalist M. Sharon Baker won four awards from the Washington Press Association for her online and magazine work.

The Anacortes resident won two First Place awards, a Second and a Third from the WPA, which is an organization of Washington State professional communicators including print and online journalists, public relations practitioners and students in these fields.

Baker won:

• First Place, Features, food for “Seattle’s Pizza Wars”, a story about the growth of startup MOD Pizza and other new pizzerias that plan national rollouts, which ran in the March 2013 issue of Seattle Business.

 

• First Place, Personality Profile for “Retail Repeat: Lily Kanter Makes Money (Again) to Give it Away“, a story for Microsoft Alumni Foundation’s newsletter

 

• Second Place General News for “Startup Generates Electricity from HVAC System Thanks to UW Design, Testing” for the University of Washington’s magazine, The Trend in Engineering.

 

• Third Place Business/Technology for “The One that Started It All:,” a story on Microsoft Corp.’s efforts to help startups for ID8Nation’s Seattle digital magazine.

 

A former reporter with The Skagit Valley Herald, The Puget Sound Business Journal, and the defunct Journal American of Bellevue, Baker has been an independent journalist since 2001. Her recent work appears in Nation’s Restaurant News, Alaska Airlines magazine and Seattle Business, among other publications.

Baker is also a freelance content writer who helps companies connect with customers by writing case studies, white papers, web copy and other marketing materials.

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