Naomi Clarke, Author at Story Peak

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Top Tools and Templates for B2B Events in Event Operations

B2B event operations need tools and templates that connect strategy, registration, production, sponsor needs, attendee data, and post-event follow-up. The best stack…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Best Practices for Content Repurposing, Lead Nurture, and Audience Retention in Modern Event Planning

Strong event repurposing begins before the event, not after the recordings arrive. Teams get better retention and lead nurture when the run…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Preferred Vendor Lists vs. Open Vendor Sourcing

Preferred vendor lists and open vendor sourcing are not simply purchasing styles. They are different governance models for balancing speed, competition, quality…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Live Streaming Mistakes That Lead to Short-lived event content

Live streaming creates short-lived event content when teams design only for the real-time broadcast and forget the replay, clip, transcript, and nurture…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Attendee Onboarding FAQ: Answers Event Teams Need Before They Move Forward

Attendee onboarding answers the practical questions people have after they register and before they arrive. A clear onboarding plan reduces confusion, support…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Event Messaging Checklist: What to Review Before Creative Production Begins

An event messaging checklist helps teams confirm the audience promise, proof points, access details, creative direction, approvals, and risk language before design…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

How to negotiate vendor pricing without hurting quality Without Creating Extra Event Complexity

The safest way to negotiate vendor pricing without hurting quality is to trade scope, timing, service levels, or deliverables with clear documentation…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

Beginner’s Guide to Room Layouts, Floor Plans, and Attendee Flow for Better Event Decisions

Room layouts, floor plans, and attendee flow affect how people enter, learn, network, rest, and leave an event. Beginners should treat the…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

If You’re Dealing With An event concept that does not fit the audience, Fix Community Event Format First

When an event concept does not fit the audience, the fastest useful fix is often the community event format: who participates, how…

Special Events & Celebrations By Naomi Clarke

How Automated Project Workflows Is Changing Planning Timeline for Event Teams

Automated project workflows are changing event planning timelines by moving teams from static date lists to living systems that surface dependencies, owners,…

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Featured Authors

Calvin Reed

Calvin Reed tells sports stories that go far beyond the box score. A former Division I basketball player, he brings an insider’s understanding to his profiles of athletes, coaches, and the communities that rally around teams. His writing explores the psychology of competition, the business of college sports, and the complicated legacies of athletic institutions. Calvin earned an MFA in nonfiction writing after his playing days ended and has since contributed to national sports magazines. Based in Nashville, he covers everything from SEC football to minor league baseball with a literary eye. He believes the best sports writing is about the human condition, not the scoreboard.

Damon Scott

Damon Scott is a historian and walking tour guide who turned his love of Chicago’s architecture and buried history into a writing career. His Story Peak essays excavate the stories beneath city streets the labor strikes, the lost jazz clubs, the immigrant neighborhoods that shaped the American metropolis. Damon holds a PhD in urban history and spent years teaching before deciding he’d rather reach an audience outside the lecture hall. He leads architectural walking tours in Chicago when he isn’t writing, and his pieces weave together archival research with a storyteller’s sense of pacing and detail. His work reminds readers that the past is never really past.

Elena Rodriguez

Elena Rodriguez is an investigative journalist whose work focuses on immigration, border communities, and the human stories behind policy debates. She has reported from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border for over a decade, earning recognition from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for her feature writing. Elena’s Story Peak pieces bring a literary sensibility to urgent social issues, centering the voices of those directly affected. She was born in Laredo and now lives in San Antonio, where she teaches journalism part-time at a community college and mentors young reporters. Her writing is precise, empathetic, and unflinching, committed to the belief that stories can change policy.

Freya Larsen

Freya Larsen writes about climate change and community resilience from the shores of Lake Superior. Her storytelling focuses on ordinary people doing extraordinary things to adapt to a warming world, from regenerative farmers to tribal conservationists to small-town mayors rewriting zoning codes. Freya holds a master’s in environmental studies and previously worked in science communications for a federal research lab. Her Story Peak pieces blend on-the-ground reporting with a deep emotional intelligence about what it means to love a place that’s changing. She lives in Duluth, where she kayaks the big lake, writes in a converted cargo van, and believes local journalism is a form of climate action.

Graham Wells

Graham Wells writes about wild places with the clarity of someone who has navigated them alone. He is an award-winning outdoor writer and essayist whose work has appeared in climbing journals and environmental magazines. His Story Peak pieces explore the intersection of adventure, conservation, and personal transformation, often set against the granite walls and red rock canyons of the American West. Graham is a certified mountain guide and spent years leading expeditions before turning to writing full-time. He lives in Salt Lake City, where proximity to five national parks fuels his reporting on public lands policy and the spiritual dimensions of time spent above treeline.

Jasper Quinn

Jasper Quinn writes narrative nonfiction that tastes like gumbo rich, layered, and distinctively Southern. He covers travel, music, foodways, and the complicated history that haunts the Gulf Coast. A former newspaper reporter, Jasper spent fifteen years covering Louisiana politics and culture before turning to longform magazine writing. His stories for Story Peak blend immersive detail with sharp cultural analysis, taking readers deep into juke joints, fishing camps, and the kitchens of old-line Creole restaurants. Jasper lives in a shotgun house in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, where he plays piano at a neighborhood bar and is perpetually working on a book about the Mississippi River’s influence on American music.

Leo Valentine

Leo Valentine is a music critic and cultural journalist who treats the night as his beat. He has written longform profiles of jazz legends, hip-hop producers, and underground electronic artists for major magazines, always with an ear for the stories behind the sound. Leo’s Story Peak work covers the late-night economy of music, the neighborhoods where scenes are born, and the artists who never quite made it but changed things anyway. He grew up in Queens and now lives in Brooklyn, where he still spends too many nights in basement clubs. His writing is vivid, rhythmically alive, and deeply knowledgeable about the lineage of American music.

Naomi Clarke

Naomi Clarke writes personal essays that feel like a long conversation over a second cup of coffee. Her work explores motherhood, marriage, creative ambition, and the quiet dramas of midlife. After a career in academic advising, Naomi began writing essays that quickly found homes in literary magazines and online journals. She now teaches memoir writing workshops and contributes regularly to Story Peak, where her column about the everyday astonishments of ordinary life has built a loyal readership. Naomi lives in a century-old house in Pittsburgh with her husband, two teenagers, and an ever-growing collection of half-finished journals. She believes every life contains a dozen memoirs.

Sienna Drake

Sienna Drake is a poet and nature writer whose prose carries the spare, luminous quality of the high desert she calls home. Her essays explore solitude, ecology, and the slow process of paying attention to a place over years. Sienna has published two chapbooks of poetry and her creative nonfiction has appeared in environmental and literary journals. On Story Peak, she writes about the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, acequia culture, and the practice of walking as a way of knowing a landscape. She lives off-grid in a small adobe house outside Taos, where she grows medicinal herbs and watches the light move across the mesa.

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Vivienne Hart

Vivienne Hart writes about the entertainment industry with an insider’s access and an outsider’s critical perspective. She spent a decade as a development executive before leaving to write full-time, and she knows exactly how the Hollywood sausage gets made. Her Story Peak features include director profiles, streaming industry analysis, and cultural criticism that interrogates what our screens are selling us. Vivienne’s writing is smart, conversational, and unafraid to call out the business while celebrating the art. She lives in Los Angeles, where she’s working on a book about women showrunners and trying to keep her succulents alive against all odds.