How to cash out of a small business without selling out
Published in Businessweek
Founders of purpose-driven companies, including Grand Central Bakery, are setting up trusts to protect their values when they step aside
READ THE STORYStorytelling’s my thing. Award-winning writing, including a Pulitzer finalist, but what really gets me jazzed is helping people share the wonders, and sometimes the woes, of their lives.
C. W. Moss
Photo: Terray Sylvester
Moving Mountains: Nelly Attar
Published in Red Bulletin
In 2022, Nelly Attar became the first Arab woman to summit K2. In Saudi Arabia, where women have been discouraged from physical activity, she’s become a role model, inspiring millions to get moving.
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Photo: Holly Andres
Food for people who can’t swallow
Published in Businessweek
What do you get when a dentist, a chef, and people with dysphagia walk into a lab?
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Photo: Cameron Baird
The Outlaster
Published in Red Bulletin
A longform piece on fitness, dedication, and crazy feats. Record-setting strongman Mike McCastle trained Colin O’Brady for his epic trek across Antarctica. But that turned out to be only a tiny part of Mike’s story.
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Photo: Rosem Morton
Reluctant towns, cities and states are being dragged into court to fix sidewalks for people with disabilities
Published in Kaiser Health News and TIME
Since 1990, the Americans With Disabilities Act has required governmental entities to provide people with disabilities access to programs and services enjoyed by their nondisabled peers. When it comes to sidewalks, many cities haven’t come close.
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Photo: Leah Nash
No strings, no bureaucracy, but suddenly $1.4 million to help a Black community
Published in The Washington Post
Cameron Whitten and Salomé Chimuku knew Black Portlanders needed something more immediate than protests.
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Photo: Amanda Lucier
A date to remember
Published in The New York Times.
An unbelievably sweet pandemic wedding story
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The weird science behind the milk we drink
Published in Undark; Scientific American; Quartz; Yahoo! News; Science and Tech Blog
There are millions of Holstein cows in the U.S., but genetically, there are less than 50 unique individuals among them. If Holsteins were wild animals, they’d be in danger of extinction. But who wants to stop inbreeding now?
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The secret life of a mermaid
Published by Narratively
When you meet Una the mermaid, you will notice that she has legs, not a tail; she lives in Portland, not the sea. By the time you’re done listening, you will believe.
“Mermaids are real,” she says. “They’re just not what you think they are.”
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She stole another’s identity and took her secret to the grave
Published by The Seattle Times and many others
My unsolved mystery story that went viral, prompting throngs of amateur sleuths to try to crack the case. After the mystery was solved, I turned it into a book for Kindle and Audible. It was featured on WNYC’s On the Media.
"Great piece of reporting. Unreal story" —
@DavidGrann, staff writer, The New Yorker
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Coaches Who Prey
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Public Service
Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting
1st place, Public Service, Scripps Howard Foundation
1st place, Investigative Reporting, Associated Press Sports Editors
ASNE Distinguished Writing Award for Local Accountability Reporting
This yearlong project, published as a four-day series in 2003, now seems prescient: an investigation of sexual abuse by high school coaches, and the system that allowed them to flourish. Told through scores of in-depth interviews with sex abuse victims, perpetrators, parents and educators, the series changed lives and changed laws. It’s been cited in everything from Title IX textbooks to instructional material for police investigators. All thanks to the young women who had the courage to come forward.
"A stunning bravura display of investigative reporting, a thorough and engrossing read, and the kind of story that changes the way people look at things. As shocking as the abuse of the female athletes was, it was equally distressing to read about how the problem was covered up–by school boards, coaches, and even the educators' union." —
Hechinger Award judges
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A vanished brother, veils of secrecy and the sister who would not give up
An unusual obituary for a dashing young man named John Adams was the impetus for this piece. I tracked down John’s family and found a story that was as sad as it was beautiful. I was honored to be able to tell it.
"The thing they all remembered most was the voice. High and pure, they called it. Crystalline. Strong but so very tender…. John Adams didn’t just sing; he felt the music. “He sang the way birds sing — because that’s just what they do. Music just came out of every pore in his body.”" —
From A Vanished Brother...
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Aging father agonizes over fate of his son
Winner, Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award
A story about a loving father, a seriously autistic son, and an agonizing choice. Also, a story about a growing public health issue: as people with severe disabilities are living longer than ever before, they’re being cared for by increasingly elderly parents.
"O’Hagan’s story moved me, taught me and showed me a part of life I had never thought about before." —
From the Pulliam judges
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Photo: Erika Schultz/Seattle Times
A year later: Cafe Racer lives on
One year after a gunman opened fire in a small, quirky Seattle café, I got the assignment to go back and talk to victims’ families and survivors. A portrait not only of grief but also of love and healing that won praise from victims, police, and strangers alike.
"Now THAT'S journalism—something that is waning in quantity in our media these days as everything is homogenized, hyperbolized, and opinionized.… A true journalist is also a poet. You reflect both traits admirably." — Seattle police sergeant, a first responder on the scene
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Sage Bionetworks seeks a drug-discovery revolution
A science story about Sage Bionetworks that manages to make Systems Biology understandable and compelling to non-scientists
"Well worth waiting for. We all appreciate your careful efforts to capture what we are doing at Sage" — Stephen H. Friend, MD, PhD, President, Sage Bionetworks
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The will to lose
Published in Pacific Standard
Why do the Usain Bolts of the world get all the glory? What about the ordinary humans who come in last? I tracked down people who crossed the finish line last in some of the country’s biggest marathons. Turns out there’s a lot to learn from these “losers.”
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