I was Associate Editor of Santa Barbara Magazine for a couple of years when it was winning two Maggie awards as Best City/Regional Magazine, beating out such rivals as Texas Monthly and Los Angeles Magazine.

The pay was crap, and I left after a couple of years and focused on writing advertising copy. But I continued to write articles for Santa Barbara Magazine until my earthquakes article caused such a flurry. Real estate agents bought a lot of advertising in SB Mag, and they were very unhappy that my article pointed out the earthquake risks in the city.