Telling Stories
My Substack continually changes. I started it as a vehicle to publish my novel, Hiram Falls. I switched gears and the novel is now in the hands of my agent. So this site became a place where I could share sketches that led to the novel and to share with you some of what I learned in the five years of writing it.
But since I love to write, I decided to share other stories – including digital stories that I create. Then I decided to share some of the things I’ve learned over 52 years in professional writing and editing. I also will let you know about random workshops I lead.
Here’s what I offer:
Hiram Falls — updates on the novel, Sketches that were performed on stage and led to creation of Hiram Falls; A Writer’s Journey an ongoing series about how I wrote the book — with related tips from my career.
Stories — a collection of my best stories, some real, some not.
On Writing — an erratically regular series about techniques and tricks gleaned about writing, editing, storytelling and telling stories with digital media — audio, images and short video.
My aim is to pass forward what was passed on to me by some brilliant writers and editors.
My hope is that you will discover new ways of writing that strengthen your own writing voice. I hope, too, to build a supportive community of writers and readers. If you like what I offer, please:
So who am I?
I am Geoffrey Gevalt. To me all writing is narrative or, at least, should be. Stories take a direct path to readers’ hearts.
I tell stories with words and sometimes with photographs and sound. I write tiny stories and long projects. I love to talk to people, to learn about them. I love helping people write better and have worked with all ages — from kids in second grade to people in their late 70s.
I am digitally inclined. In 1995, I led the startup of what was then the 13th news site on the Web — think about that for a moment — and edited the first syndicated column about the Internet. Since then I have built hundreds of web sites used by kids in schools and outside of school to learn how to find voice and become better writers.
I love the outdoors and have explored places unseen by humans (until us, of course) mostly by canoe.
I am always looking for stories.
I am married, but I respect my wife’s privacy. I have three children, but they are on their own. I miss them.
I grew up in a tiny town in the mountains where everyone knew everything about everybody. I was not Geoffrey or Geoff; I was "Doc's youngest," my Dad being an old-style doctor who made house calls, even though he had polio, an affliction we shared; damage to his body was far, far more severe.
A Journalist
For 35 years of my professional life I have been a journalist, mostly with newspapers, where I learned from some of the nation's best. I began in Maine (Lewiston Daily Sun and Portland Press Herald/Evening Express/Sunday Telegram). My travels took me to New York City (Institutional Investor Magazine), Baltimore (Associated Press), Boston (Boston Business Journal & Quincy Patriot Ledger), Akron (The Beacon Journal) and then the Burlington, VT, (Burlington Free Press).
I still work as a journalist. For the last year I’ve served as managing editor of our town’s tiny nonprofit monthly newspaper; in December 2025 we ended our monthly print edition and are now a bustling online weekly right here on Substack: https://hinesburgrecord.org. I also had two stints in 2025 as interim managing editor of the Santa Cruz (CA) Lookout Local, a fiesty online daily that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News.
I am lucky. My colleagues and I have won lots of national and regional awards, including the esteemed George S. Polk Award for investigative journalism. We changed some laws, brought some joy to people’s lives and put some crooks into prison, too. And for two years I was a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes.
Journalism is fun. It saddens me that 40 percent of America’s newspapers have closed in the last decade and that and professional journalists and media outlets in general have become inconsequential and maligned and decimated by their new corporate owners.
Support your local news organization. Subscribe to them. Donate to them. We must keep them alive.
A teacher of teachers and the young
At my last daily newspaper job — the Burlington Free Press in northern Vermont — I grew concerned that so many kids in school were learning how to hate writing, particularly in fifth grade when confronted by the dreaded Five Paragraph Essay. They also learned, or thought they had learned, that they were no good at writing.
I decided to do something about it. With a group of teachers, authors and kids we started a weekly feature designed to highlight interesting student writing and to showcase different – and better – ways to teach writing.
In 2006, I was presented with an I could not refuse: an unsolicited grant from the Vermont Business Roundtable to leave journalism and transform the newspaper feature into an organization: Young Writers Project was born, a web-centric, nonprofit that helped and still helps young people find voice.
We learned quickly that kids, when left to their own devices, will give each other respect and support and, within that safe environment, will freely take creative risk. We gave them affirmation – and YWP still does – by publishing their best work in newspapers, on radio, on other websites and in a digital magazine and annual anthology.
I ran the project for 12 years. In that time we:
connected with an estimated 100,000+ young people, published the work of 18,000 students in 23 partner news organizations;
provided professional support to 2,500+ teachers including a Master’s class for another 250;
built, supported and provided training for private websites in 65 schools where students and teachers wrote for fun and followed a writing curriculum we set up.
maintained the original online community, youngwritersproject.org, which continues to support approximately 4,000 active young writers from around the world.
A novelist
In July, 2018, I stepped down as executive director of YWP to write a novel. The seeds for the book, Hiram Falls, were stories I wrote for and continue to write for performance on stage. It took me six years and 13 major revisions to complete.
The idea sprang from a diary I was given that was written by an 18-year-old girl in 1892. Several character sketches later, I began conceiving the community, then more characters, and then the plotlines. It has been great fun to write.
Writing the novel taught me I was actually a morning person (I had thought otherwise). I got up at 4 a.m., made an espresso and started writing at 4:30 and wrote until noon or well beyond.
Here are few things I do or have done outside of my personal writing:
Digital photography. Photography provides a nice break from writing; it uses a different part of your brain.
For nine months, I led weekly writing sessions for people struggling with opiate addiction.
For four and a half years, I ran a weekly writing group online, sometimes with guest writers.
For several years I taught teachers how to use digital technology to deepen student engagement and improve writing.
For several years I taught six-week workshops for The Story Center, the U.S. inventors of digital storytelling.
What I used to tell the kids I worked with: “keep on writin’.
