Faith Zochowski | Reporter
Journalist and New York Times Best-Selling author Beth Macy will return to her alma mater, Bowling Green State University, Thursday, Sept. 15 to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award. According to the BGSU website, the award was established to recognize alumni who have greatly impacted their community through contributions in their professional field.
Macy grew up in Urbana, Ohio in a poor family and attended BGSU fully on Pell grants and scholarships. To pay for her education, she worked three jobs: mixing chemicals in the photojournalism lab, writing press releases in the public relations office, and working in the financial office.
“I was really, really scared to go to college because nobody in my family had ever gone,” Macy said. “It took a lot of courage. I always tell people it saved my life.”
The ’86 alum studied journalism at the university and said she was intrigued by journalism because she loved literature and English classes and was looking for something to take advantage of her skills.
Macy found early success her sophomore year with a piece published in Seventeen magazine. She spoke highly of her teachers Vicki Hesterman and Ray Laakaniemi who served as mentors for her.
“I had a couple of professors that really taught the basics, and that was key – how to do interviews, how to become part of your community so that people trusted you,” she said.
Additionally, Macy worked for Miscellany Magazine, which was the campus magazine at the time, as the managing editor.
After graduation, Macy worked at the Columbus Monthly magazine for a summer internship. She impressed them enough to get a job at the weekly newspaper they also ran and they eventually recommended her for her first daily job in Savannah, Georgia.
Macy moved to Roanoke, Virginia in 1989 to work for the Roanoke Times on and off for 25 years until she started writing books in 2014. She started out as a feature writer, eventually writing on more serious issues. All of her books drew from her initial reporting at the Roanoke Times.
She began reporting about the opioid crisis in 2012 for the newspaper, which was then called the heroin crisis and was prominent in upper middle-class suburbs. She went back to the communities near Roanoke where she had initially had a lot of sources and that research led to the publication of her novel “Dopesick,” which follows the opioid crisis in America.
Macy reflected on what teacher Ray Laakaniemi taught her about “getting to know regular people in order to get stories that are happening on the street.”
She said, “Make good sources and court them and keep them in your life. Get your communities to trust you.”
She is thankful for this advice and continues to return to the people of Appalachia, Virginia, where she first began researching the epidemic.
“I go back, and back, and back – I’m like a bad virus. I never go away. I just keep coming back,” Macy said. “They have to trust me because I approach everything with genuine curiosity because I want to understand what they’re seeing.”
The novel has received much success, winning an L.A. Times Book Prize. Hulu also adapted the novel into an 8-episode series starring renowned actors such as Michael Keaton.
Macy’s main concern with the show was to not stereotype the people of Appalachia. She said she appreciates that the show does not stigmatize them as outcasts.
“[The show] is a really strong sentiment. It’s helped people understand that it isn’t just their addicted loved one’s fault. It’s the company’s fault. It’s started to shift the stigma away from the drug users to the people who boosted this upon America,” she said. “I’m so proud of how it turned out. I just think it exceeds my expectations in every way.”
Macy spoke highly of show writer Danny Strong, who showed up every morning ready to work with them and “really put heart and soul into it.” She worked extensively with Strong and co-wrote two episodes. She even starred in the show for about three minutes.
“It’s weird that I get to work with people who work harder than I do,” she said of Strong.
The show earned 14 Emmy Nominations, and the show aired this past Monday, Sept. 12. Michael Keaton won for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series. Macy attended the Emmy’s with the writers and cast of the show.
“Whoever thought that a book author from Urbana, OH would be on her way to the Emmy’s with a dress in her suitcase that cost more than my first vehicle?” she asked.
Her most recent novel, “Raising Lazarus” was published this past August as a continuation of “Dopesick.” Macy’s other novels include “Factory Man” and “Truevine.”
BGSU is recognizing Macy for her contributions to her community. She will be inducted into the 2022 Class of the Academy of Distinguished Alumni on Thursday, Sept. 15. The induction ceremony coincides with Homecoming Week, and Macy feels that this is a homecoming for her.
“It’s really hard being a first-generation student. I’ve always had the support of friends and mentor teachers,” she said. “It does feel like homecoming because it’s all about the people to me who are mentors and who saw something in me. I love coming and giving back.”
Macy will be speaking to journalism students Thursday, Sept. 15 at noon in the Multipurpose Room of the Bowen Thompson Student Union. She said she is looking forward to giving students encouragement.
“It’s a tough time to be a journalist, but there are stories out there to be told, and there’s new ways people are telling them,” she said. “We don’t even know what all stories we’re missing out there because they’re not being told. There’s just a crying need for more storytellers out there.”
Macy stresses the importance of getting off your phone and getting out in the community.
“Make connections. It is your job to connect readers to each other if only for a moment,” Macy said. “That’s the beauty of journalism.”
For more information on Macy’s other works and to purchase her novels, visit her website.
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