Kudos 
to Joe Wright and his excellent piece on “rules and long term commitment” as broadcasted yesterday on National Public Radio!
Jack
Just listened to this one, as well as the past couple of spots that I'd missed…very nice work, Joe!
Thanks guys! I've been enjoying writing these and I hope to keep on going… so I especially appreciate the kind words I've received along the way.
cheers
sf/boston joe
Hey…where’s the link 
?
Go to www.npr.org and then search for “Joe Wright” in the site, or, more specifically, on “All Things Considered”. Happy listening…
Unbenownst to me until now, on Friday, All Things Considered ran a piece I wrote about white coat ceremonies and the movement to instill more compassion in medicine.
The link is:
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20021129.atc.12.ram
cheers
joe
Joe, I just listened to all of them, and they're fantastic! I've heard you before (I think it was the one about killing mice), as I'm an NPR junkie. Imagine my surprise - that's YOU? Anyhoo, I have some questions for you…
1. Where did you go to Free School? Was it in Marin Co.? Cause, I also went to a free school when I was a kid for a little while.
2. How did you get started with the NPR thing?
3. I work with the REACH study in SF, and the SFNE on Clayton… Have I met you???
4. Did I read your PS last summer? I seem to remember reading a PS that sounds a lot like your life story. It was one of the best that I read. If it was you, I'm not surprized that you're now at Harvard.
If you're ever in the bay area, send me a pm and maybe we can meet for a drink. I have a feeling that you and I have a whole lot in common.
Nanon
PS - To the rest of you - about the reviewing of personal statements - I do read and edit these things for people on SDN, and I'll do it for ya'll, too. Some people find it really helpful, and I actually enjoy it.
That’s so cool–I’m glad you liked the commentaries. Some of your questions I’ll answer in an email. I’m not sure we’ve met but I am 100% sure we at least know some people in common.
I don’t know whether you would have read my PS–it’s at
http://studentweb.med.harvard.edu/JMW16/ht…l/AMCAS-PS.html if you’re interested in comparing. I’ve enjoyed your writing too, and the concept of your site. Are you applying/in school now? I’d be curious to know how you actually resolved the dilemma of “What to tell”–definitely something I struggled with, though less dramatically so than it sounds like you have.
I do think there are a number of us San Franciscan freak types who are now joining the medical profession. The impact of and response to AIDS on the city, and everything that followed, has drawn a cohort of new kinds of people into medicine–people whose equivalents in previous generations probably never would have touched doctoring with a ten-foot-pole. I’m really looking forward to seeing what we all end up doing.
As for the NPR thing–I have the answer doomed to frustrate all other writers, which is that I knew someone who worked there. She and I have been talking about writing and exchanging writing since we were both 16 and working in an espresso/gelati place in Sacramento. She’s worked at NPR for a long time now. I sent her some stuff a year or two after she first started there, but it never worked out and I dropped it, figuring our friendship was more important than pestering her about it. Looking back at the stuff I was writing then, I can see that I just didn’t have anything particularly unique to say.
In the interim, I very sporadically put out a zine and worked on writing on my own terms without thinking about publishing. I think it was good to write with a fee of “$1 + stamps, free to prisoners” because it allowed me to think of an audience, so that it wasn’t just journal writing–I was thinking of the people who wrote me and exchanged zines and sent me pictures of their dogs, etc–but given that my circulation was <100, I wasn’t really trying to please anyone other than myself. I think as a result of my zine, I developed my writing voice more fully.
Then last year, I was talking to my NPR friend about my work at a lab, and she was interested in the fact that I was killing mice but having mixed feelings about it–she’d thought of animal research as something you were either for or against. So she asked me to write a piece about that. She and other producers there liked the resulting piece, and so I’ve had the opportunity to contribute more.
Talk to you soon–
warm regards
sf/boston joe
Thanks Larry–good to hear you're enjoying it… I am too.
cheers
joe