By Tillie Davies and Celeste Amron
The Theogony newspaper recently gained a new adviser, Mick Heller. He started helping with the paper this fall to keep himself busy during retirement. Before working with Theogony, Heller was a sports copy editor at The Washington Post for 15 years. Before working at The Washington Post, Heller was a news and sports writer for The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Times.
Heller grew up in Burlingame, California and became interested in the journalism field as a kid. “I read newspapers growing up,” Heller said, “and I knew that I wanted to write, so the combination drew me to journalism.”
Heller followed his passion when he wrote for his high school newspaper. Heller says, “Theogony is much better [than his high school newspaper],” for a number of reasons, one being that Theogony has an online edition.
Heller attended the University of Pacific, where he worked at the college radio station. He graduated as an English major.
At these workplaces, Heller learned that “reading and writing go hand in hand whether you’re a journalist or any kind of writer.” Heller also found that reading your own writing before it is handed to editors is an important skill to practice.
Heller decided to volunteer with Theogony after his son, a former managing editor of his college newspaper, suggested helping a local paper. Assisting is different from writing or editing because “[he] wants to be encouraging and positive and not get in the way.” Heller thinks that writing at a school newspaper is very similar to writing at a larger publication because it still deals with the same concepts, the only difference being that it is on a local scale.
The best thing Heller has seen in Theogony is the idea of having both print and online, and not recycling print stories into the online. He is also impressed with the photos taken for articles. “I really like the enthusiasm that you all share here.”
Heller said, “Sure there are mistakes, but this is a learning process. I don’t have any negative feelings.”
So far, Heller loves working at Theogony. “It’s been wonderful” he said. “[I] would love to continue working with the newspaper in the coming years.”