First Draft of Profile Due Sunday 3/15

Please put your draft in this folder by Sunday March 15 @ 11:59 PM.

Reminders:

1. You must do an in-person interview and take a horizontal photo of the person — properly framed. (Rule of thirds, see ppt above.)
2. Your piece should work on two levels — about the subject and also about something else.
3. Include a direct quote from a person commenting on your subject.
4. Follow the format exactly. Here’s a profile of my mom — about her, her book and about starting a project later in life.

(Headline) Clara Villarosa: Still Down to Business

(Story Lede) Clara Villarosa remembers exactly when she hit rock bottom in her career: September 3, 1980. That was the day her boss called her into his office and fired her from her position as vice president of human resources of Colorado’s largest bank.

“I closed the door of my bedroom and cried my eyes out,” says Villarosa, who was then 52 and had spent many years climbing the corporate ladder. “I was crushed. I couldn’t believe I’d lost my job.” 

(Transition sentence) But, as she says, you can’t keep a good woman down for long.

(nut graph; this part explains why the reader should care/what the news is) Villarosa picked herself up, dusted herself off and kept stepping. With her severance in hand, she reinvented herself as an entrepreneur and opened the Hue-Man Experience Bookstore a few years later. She would grow it into the country’s largest Black bookstore. Now 85, a time when most people have stopped working — and after a second, successful store in Harlem — she’s reinvented herself again, this time as author of the new book, “Down to Business: The First 10 Steps for Entrepreneurship for Women.”

(end nut graph with direct quote) “My personality was too big for the confines of corporate America,” says Villarosa. “The very traits that had irked my colleagues— being a pushy, assertive, independent thinker, fast on my feet, with a tendency to stir things up— were the qualities of which I was most proud. I hope others can recognize their own gifts through my story.”

(body, one point at a time) A first-time author at 80 years old? Villarosa says that writing doesn’t come naturally to her, so putting together her book proved challenging. But midlife change-up runs in her family. “My own mother, Mollie, started as a hat maker, then went to beauty school and became a hairdresser,” she says. “That’s not all. In her 50s, she became a realtor, later a psychic. So big life changes aren’t such a big deal to me.”

Villarosa decided to write her book after getting so many basic questions from women and some men who wanted to open businesses. “People came to me with great business ideas, but what they needed was hard-core, real-world advice, information that was straightforward and easy-to-understand,” Villarosa explains. “I have lots of that after so much experience and so many years at it.”

“Down to Business” highlights a number of Harlem entrepreneurs. Villarosa says she did this by design, honing in on small businesses with less than $1 million a year in revenue, some with less than $100,000. “This vital community was a microcosm of what was happening in cities, suburbs and small towns all over the country,” she explains. “This is where I live, am entertained, and shop, so these are dynamic entrepreneurs from my community. Because I know them and they know me, I was able to sit and talk intimately about their businesses. “

(comment from someone else) Izzy Best, a would-be entrepreneur, says that the advice in “Down to Business” proved invaluable as she put together a business plan to open a video production company. “Clara is an inspiration, especially at her age, and all of her suggestions were practical and grounded in reality,” says Best, who lives in Harlem and plans to launch next year. “The book didn’t sugar coat anything but allowed me the courage to take entrepreneurial baby steps.”

Retired from the day-to-day running of Hue-Man in Harlem, Villarosa says she’s already got her eye on another career. “I’ve been doing workshops at banks for entrepreneurs to publicize the book,” says Villarosa. “Being a career coach might be my third act.”

(kicker) She flashes her smile. “Or is it my fourth?” she says. “I can’t even keep up with me!”