Anyway, if you’ve never heard of The Villages, there’s really no way to describe the actual scope of it, but I'll try. People from all over the country retire there to enjoy the more than forty golf courses, more than a hundred recreation centers and hundreds upon hundreds of resident lifestyle clubs — encompassing everything from clogging, quilting and billiards to cheerleading, clowning and even belly dancing. There’s a club for pretty much any niche thing you could think of. There is a club for people named Elaine.
Thousands of golf carts roam along the perfectly manicured streets that connect multiple town squares and more than fifty square miles of homes, pools, recreation centers and Publixes. Some of the golf carts do tricks (the Flying Golf Cart Stunt Pilots is the name of one such club). Others use their powers for evil and coordinate giant "Villagers for Trump" golf cart parades.
This is where I started my journalism career at the age of 21, two days after graduating college a year early because I didn't know how to chill. Still don't.
The Villages Daily Sun is one of Florida’s largest daily papers, and working there was kind of like stepping back in time to an era of journalism when whole teams of staff photographers, page designers and even copy editors were still a thing. Because get this: The daily print paper was still the star of the show. The paper, which was sometimes more than seventy pages, served a large demographic of people who still would rather read print than online stories. Inside the newsroom, reporters and photographers were always running around to and from assignments, phones were ringing and there were bitter pots of cheap coffee that I drank black. I didn’t realize how good I had it as a journalist, because I was too busy sulking about being queer and in my early twenties in a Florida retirement community.
The first several months as a general assignment reporter were hard, with Villagers yelling at me for interrupting their Mahjong games when I tried to talk to them in recreation centers for club briefs, but things started to look up when I was promoted to the arts and entertainment beat. Turns out there were other young and creative people working as sound engineers, lighting designers and stage managers in the performing arts center where I covered touring artists like Art Garfunkel, Electric Light Orchestra and the Beach Boys. I worked a lot of late nights, but when I walked into the theater, suddenly it didn’t matter that I was extremely out of place in The Villages. I belonged in there.
I remember going to the greenroom to interview old stars like Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits, being moved to tears from my press seat during an orchestra concert after a breakup (try it sometime, it’s extremely therapeutic) and, most of all, the feeling of connectedness (a feeling that is becoming increasingly hard to find) among people who shared a love for acting, singing, playing instruments and making art.
I became an editor at the age of 24 after training with a writing coach and completing a rigorous six-month-long leadership academy, all opportunities that I would’ve been pressed to find in most modern newsrooms. But living in a retirement community was depressing and isolating.
Colorado, Here I Come
In 2021, I started applying for jobs like crazy — I even applied for a job at Westword, but it (rightfully) did not want some Floridian who had never been to Denver before. I ended up in Denver anyway, finally landing a job at Colorado Community Media as the editor of five weekly newspapers in the metro area west of Denver. You can probably tell by the fact that I was the editor of five papers that it was a lot different from my cushy job at the Daily Sun.But I was in a city! Touching snow! Seeing a dead body outside my window in Capitol Hill! Walking to the grocery store! Learning that AC isn’t really a thing in a lot of apartments here … but finally getting to live like I was in my twenties.
Of course, I picked up a copy of Westword pretty much as soon as I got to Denver, getting lost in the colorful pages and snappy writing. (And also looking for copy errors, because I can't help myself.) Living in Cap Hill, I’d pass by the Westword office on Lincoln Street quite a bit, staring longingly at the big red sign and telling whoever I was with that I wanted to work there. It kind of became an embarrassing personality trait that I wanted to work at Westword.
My job at Colorado Community Media taught me so much and I have nothing but respect for the reporters and editors there, who work day and night to report on hyper-local news that, in many cases, readers wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. As an editor, I worked remotely and spent a lot of time editing city council stories and budgeting and proofing my five papers alone in my apartment. I missed seeing the people I work with in real life and having a byline. And I really missed covering the arts.
When you walk into the Westword newsroom, keyboards are clacking, people are running around and coffee is brewing. For me, it feels like coming home.
As Culture Editor, Kristen Fiore will be writing and coordinating stories on books, hiking and the outdoors, sex and dating, theater, travel, visual art and more. Email [email protected] anytime with tips, story ideas, questions or comments.
