maiphoang

My name is Mai Hoang. I am a business reporter for the Yakima Herald-Republic, a 35,000 circulation newspaper in Yakima, Wash. As part of my job, I run Shop Talk, a blog about retail and restaurant trends and the blog's corresponding Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I also keep a personal (but not private) Twitter account, tweeting about my indie rock music, the changing state of the journalism industry and eating. I do much of the same on Facebook.

I was born in Lancaster, Pa., but spent most of my childhood in the Philadelphia area. When I was 16, I moved to Louisville, Ky. I graduated from J.M. Atherton High School in 2000. I spent my college years at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. and graduated in 2004 with a degree in news-editorial journalism and religious studies. During college, I honed my reporting and writing skills working at The College Heights Herald, an independent twice-weekly college newspaper and completing internships at the Times-Leader in Wiles-Barre, Pa, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel.

After graudation, I spent a year volunteering in innercity Chicago gathering census data and teaching elementary school children how to write at Casa Central. After my stint in Chicago, I returned to Louisville and freelanced for Courier Journal and Business First of Louisville before packing all my things and moving to the Pacific Northwest, where I have been ever since.