Joel Achenbach
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Joel Achenbach is an American staff writer for The Washington Post and the author of six books, including The Grand Idea, Captured by Aliens, and three compilations of his syndicated newspaper column "Why Things Are" (now defunct). He wrote a monthly science column for National Geographic magazine and has been a commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His writing has been featured in the 2007 Word-A-Day calendar.[1] He graduated from Princeton University in 1982 with an A.B. degree in politics. He often makes a point of noting that during his freshman year, he lived next door to David Duchovny.[2] Achenbach lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and three daughters.
Achenbach's "Washington Post Magazine" column, entitled "Rough Draft," was primarily humorous. He was also staff writer for the Post's Outlook section. On September 7, 2007, The Washington Post named him National Enterprise writer for the duration of the United States presidential election, 2008.[3]
He has a regular blog on the washingtonpost.com website as well, attracting a small audience of devoted fans as well as a larger group of casual readers.
A large degree of the conversations on Achenblog tend to arc back to previous posts, creating a large litany of phrases and comments that are somewhat opaque to the average reader. Here are a small sample of some of the terms used on Achenblog:
- SAO-15: The Select Audience of 15, used to describe the core group of users who post regularly on Achenblog
- Rovestorm: A post which attracts a huge number of casual readers due to its political content
- Boodle: the conversation thread itself on Achenblog (Derives from the phrase "kit and kaboodle," by Achenbach, wherein the "kit" is the main blog entry and the "kaboodle" is the collection of comments.)
[edit] References
- ^ Joel Achenbach. "Annus Mirabilis!", Achenblog, 2007-09-07. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Joel Achenbach. "David Duchovny Is Da Bomb", Washington Post Magazine, 2005-03-20, p. 11. Retrieved on 2007-03-24.
- ^ Patrick W. Gavin. "Achenbach Becomes "National Enterprise Writer"", Mediabistro.com, 2007-09-07. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
[edit] Selected works
- Why Things Are (1991), ISBN 978-0-345-36224-7
- It Looks Like a President Only Smaller: Trailing Campaign 2000 (2001), ISBN 978-0-7432-2348-5
- Captured By Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe (2003), ISBN 978-0-8065-2496-2
- The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West (2005), ISBN 978-0-7432-6300-9
[edit] External links
- Achenblog - the official Joel Achenbach blog
- [1] [2] - Online Achenbach diavlogs with Robert Wright on BloggingHeads.tv
