EP 59: INCREDIBLE STORIES FROM INSPIRING WOMEN: Pulitzer Prize Winner Lane DeGregory Writes Her Own Success Story
Lane DeGregory, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, podcaster, and journalist is “On The Record With Sarina Fazan.” A prolific writer, Lane has written more than 3,000 stories for newspapers and magazines over the past 30 years. Her love for writing began as a child and remains her passion today. On this podcast, she shares her own inspirational story with Sarina!
Lane grew up near Washington, D.C., and she was in kindergarten during the Watergate scandal. Every morning, her father read The Washington Post to her sister and her during breakfast. Her father talked about reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein like they were heroes, and, at just six years old, she decided she wanted to be a journalist, too!
While in elementary school, Lane and her sister even founded their own little newspaper. Lane would write the stories, her sister took the pictures, and her father made copies at the library!
“It’s always been who I am,” Lane explains.
Lane went to a public high school that was a journalism magnet. From there, she attended the University of Virginia, choosing the university because they were one of the only schools that had a daily newspaper in their journalism department. It’s not surprising that Lane served as the editor-in-chief of The Cavalier Daily student newspaper!
She graduated with degrees in rhetoric and English. Later, she earned a master’s degree in rhetoric and communication studies from the University of Virginia.
After completing her graduate studies, Lane began writing for The Virginian Pilot in Norfolk, where she worked for a decade. She covered news for the first seven years as part of the paper’s bureau, before joining their Narrative Writing Team. This was Lane’s transition from chasing the news to telling stories.
She came to the Tampa Bay Times in 2000 as a feature writer. When she started, the Times had a daily features section, allowing Lane to tell many local stories. She credits her connections in the community as the source for her ideas.
“Being a feature writer, you’re kind of like a paramedic,” Lane explains. “You’re always on call, right? There’s always something out there that you can just grab on to. And if you go home and tell your husband, or your best friend, or your mom about something that happened, maybe there’s a story there.”
Her favorite types of stories to write are human-interest stories about kids and adolescents, especially when there is hope to share. In fact, one such story earned Lane a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2009. “A Girl in the Window” is the story of a nine-year-old girl from Plant City, Florida, named Dani, who was neglected to the point of being feral, her rescue, and her journey to adoption. You can read the original three-part story and subsequent updates at https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/girl-in-the-window/. With more than 1.5 million page views since its publication in August 2008, “The Girl in the Window” is the most popular story in tampabay.com’s history.
“When we started out there was so much hope,” Lane says. “All the doctors, and psychiatrists, and speech therapists kept saying, oh maybe we caught her in time. Maybe we caught her young enough that we can repair all this damage that’s been done. So, there was initially a lot of hope and we followed her for about six months for that story. And did see some progress during that time.”
Lane followed Dani’s story for 11 years, sharing her message and helping other children find new homes. But she didn’t expect to win a Pulitzer Prize for it.
The Times’ nominated “A Girl in the Window” for the Pulitzer Prize, along with reporter John Barry’s stories chronicling Winter the dolphin (which would go on to inspire a major motion picture). John’s story was selected one of three Pulitzer finalists, and Lane thought her story was out of the running. However, that was not the case.
“I was covering a murder story that day. Remember that teenage love triangle story with those two girls and a boy?” Lane recalls. “I had gone to the horrible murder scene, and I was coming home and trying to type a story at home on deadline. And I was texting my friends, like did John win? Did we hear from John? Then all of a sudden, my dogs start barking really loud, and I look at the front door and the editor is there at my house!”
And it was at that point the editor told her that John didn’t win, but she did! Lane’s story had been selected for the top 10 and was later moved into contention by the Pulitzer board, winning the top prize.
Lane currently is an enterprise reporter at the Tampa Bay Times. She also hosts a weekly podcast, WriteLane, which you can find on SoundCloud or iTunes.
She also teaches at the University of South Florida, the Poynter Institute, and journalism conferences around the world. She says that, after every talk, at least one young woman approaches her to ask if it’s possible to be a journalist and a mother.
Lane advises, “You can do both. You don’t have to give up everything to be a journalist or a career woman. You can have a family. You can have children. And it really enriched my kids’ lives.”
She has been married to Dan DeGregory, a drummer and teacher, for 28 years. They have two grown sons, Ryland and Tucker. She also has a crazy cattle dog named Taz.
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