From classmates in '78 to fiction co-authors in 2012

Bernie Kohn has been a reporter and editor for 30 years at news organizations including the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun and Bloomberg News.  He conceived and edited a series on land-ownership abuses that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in local reporting in 2007.  A recipient of numerous national, state and local writing awards, Kohn is a past president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, a guest lecturer at professional seminars, and a winner of the Outstanding Journalism Alumnus Award at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.

Gina Smith is also a journalism graduate and spent six years as a reporter and editor at a small Midwestern daily before moving into public relations and marketing. She has national, state and local publication awards and credits in news features, publication design, poetry, fiction and non-fiction. A prolific blogger and mixed media artist, her writing and artwork have been featured recently in national magazines. She met her future writing partner in the front row of Journalism 101 on the first day of college in 1978.

Together they have created BOXED SET, a 74,000-word adult contemporary novel, their first joint effort.