Work of Michael Bales

Here you’ll find samples of my longer-form writing, most of it for clients. Some are among 45 stories I wrote for a book, Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo, published in July 2009 by Graphic Arts Press. Others represent work done for The Oregonian, Portland’s daily newspaper. The book project required extensive research of historical records. In some cases, the research enabled me to create compelling narratives of events for which there are no living witnesses.

Most of the newspaper stories I found on my own and then pitched successfully to The Oregonian. Freelanced stories usually don’t get prominent display in the newspaper. But on three successive days in 2008, my work was on the front page, the front of the Metro section, and the cover of the inPortland section. I’m told this had never happened, at least in recent memory.

I’ve also included prize-winning work I produced in the graduate writing program at Portland State University. You can learn more about my skills and background here. Please contact me for more information.

Battle of the Sexes

February 27, 2009

From Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo

It was a battle of the sexes that never came to pass. Not that Mabel Strickland and other cowgirls didn’t try in 1924. Emboldened by their skills and growing popularity among rodeo fans from Pendleton to New York to London, they wanted to compete directly with the cowboys.

Who could blame them? The prize money was richer and the trophies larger. Riding bucking broncos and wrestling steers to the ground, the women faced the same dangers as men. The prowess and daring of Strickland, Fox Hastings, Lorena Trickey, Prairie Rose Henderson, and others were evident. A month before the Round-Up that year, Strickland had the second best time in steer roping among cowboys and cowgirls at the Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Two years earlier at the Round-Up, she had roped and tied down a steer in eighteen seconds, close to the men’s world record.

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1911 Bucking Finals: Controversy Lingers

February 27, 2009

From Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo

In an era of stark racial divides, it’s remarkable that the Pendleton Round-Up’s most famous contest happened at all. The year was 1911. Segregation was rampant, and memories of Indian wars and slavery lingered. Viewed through the lens of today’s world, the storyline smacks of something Hollywood might [...]

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Bookstore Gets Boost from Internet

February 26, 2009

For The Oregonian, Jan. 22, 2009
This is a story about love, shopping locally and the power of the Internet.
And burritos, too.
It began in early December when a man learned that his mother’s Northeast neighborhood business, Broadway Books, faced financial problems more ominous than the struggles small independent booksellers typically see.

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Shades of a Renegade

February 25, 2009

For The Oregonian, Feb. 28, 2008
A young man’s face gazes upon the world from a gnarled tree.
His portrait is attached to the trunk along a well-traveled street of tidy houses. Painted mostly in blues and black against sunset reds, the image burns through winter’s gloom, luring a motorist to stop.
Black, unreadable eyes stare straight ahead. [...]

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Backyard Farming: Food Close to Home

February 24, 2009

For The Oregonian, May 8, 2008

Martin Barrett and Dan Bravin stand next to tidy rows they’ve planted with spinach, lettuce, carrot and other seeds — and at the edge of a new take on urban farming.

Their idea: to farm in city backyards of people who donate the land in return for a share of the [...]

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And the World Will Fall to Pieces

February 22, 2009

This personal essay won the 2005 non-fiction award in the graduate writing program at Portland State University.
A photograph haunts me. It stares down from atop my bookcase. I feel it on the back of my neck. I take it down and look at the image, again. In black, white, and every shade of gray, I [...]

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