Welcome to my website! My name is Amanda Marsh, and I’m a disgruntled LIRR commuter by morning, journalist by day, and insomniac by night.

You came to my website because you either know me or would like to learn more about me. Well, here’s the shorthand version:

I’m a lifelong resident of Islip, Long Island (it’s the hamlet of Islip, not Central Islip, East Islip, Islip Terrace, or West Islip), where I current live with my family and crazy dog. Although I’ve lived here all my life, I enjoy traveling, and have been all around the United States, Canada, and Jamaica. My first real overseas trip will take place in 2010, when I visit Taiwan for two weeks.

I’m a journalist by profession. I’ve known I wanted to write since the tender age of five, when I plucked out my first news article – about my first nephew’s birth – on my mother’s Sears electric typewriter.  I wrote throughout my schooling, capped with editor-in-chiefdom of Fordham University’s student newspaper, The Ram. After graduating with a BA in communication and media studies,  I soon found myself working for a commercial real estate trade publication, Commercial Property News (now known as Commercial Property Executive). After two-and-a-half years, I left to start up the New York commercial real estate newsletter for Bisnow in 2008, where you can now find me with a camera strapped around my neck, marble notebook in hand, and chasing down the latest news on the highest skyscrapers, top brokers, and interesting deals.

When not writing, I enjoy reading, rock music, wandering around aimlessly, collecting vintage-looking jewelry, toying around on the computer, and causing relatively harmless trouble.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you still write in a marble notebook?

I suppose I can choose Moleskine or a fancier notebook, but I find marble notebooks hardy for my rough-and-tumble days. Plus, I go through at least two a month, so I stock up when they’re 25 cents at Target’s back-to-school scale. People who see my notebooks get a certain nostalgia, which I enjoy.

But why not use a computer?

I did purchase an Acer Aspire One for writing on the go, but it doesn’t bode well for live interviews. I compulsively edit myself, so by the time I backspace to correct a misspelling, I’ve already missed an important part of what the interview subject said.

How do you write so fast and so neatly?

Five words: plenty of Catholic school training.

What camera do you use?

A Nikon D40, which cost me an arm and a leg when I first purchased it, but has since decreased dramatically in price. It’s not anything fancy, but it does the job. My favorite thing to do is ask others to take a photo of me with the D40, but to “look through it like an old-fashioned camera.” Apparently looking through the viewfinder is obsolete.