M.C. Coolidge is an award-winning freelance writer, newspaper columnist/opinion journalist, and blogger, living in Sarasota, Florida.
Her weekly newspaper column, Sense and the City, appeared each Thursday in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune from 2010 to 2012, and her opinion essays have appeared in the Op/Ed pages of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Tribune, and Bradenton Herald, among others. She was the recipient of a 2008 Florida Press Award for humor column-writing and has won numerous “best of” awards from local magazines and newspapers. As an opinion columnist, Coolidge has appeared several times as a guest panelist on the WEDU/PBS political television program, Florida This Week, moderated by Rob Lorei.
Through her newspaper columns, Coolidge has encouraged annual fundraising efforts to benefit the All Faiths Food Bank in Sarasota, helping collect nearly $14,000 to date from readers both print and online.
From 2006 to 2008, Coolidge penned a weekly newspaper column titled “Reality Chick” for the Pelican Press newspaper. Select columns from that period were published in her 2008 book, Sideways in Sarasota.
Coolidge is a native Floridian, was a Stadler Poet at Bucknell University (Spring ’92) at and completed her B.A. (English Writing/French Minor) at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, summa cum laude.
She is a native Floridian and currently resides in Sarasota.
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MC in Print
New column: Why Dent’s ‘experience’ isn’t the right kind
I’m wading into the supervisor of elections primary this week in my first guest column for The Sarasota News Leader, a new online outfit I blogged about back in June. They publish a fresh slate of stories and columns each Friday, and I’m happy to report they liked a piece I wrote about Supervisor of […]
Sense and the City: Signing off
Today’s column will be my last for Ticket. I’ve enjoyed writing in this space — sharing stories about everything from dads teaching their children how to skip stones across the water, charities and fundraising events, and women who put their titillating talent (and tassels) to the burlesque test, to pieces about local firefighters, nurses and […]
Sense and the City: Diane McFarlin will be missed
Having met Sarasota Herald-Tribune Publisher Diane McFarlin only once and then briefly — when we bumped into each other one night at a Ringling Town Hall lecture, and I learned that she was as warm and genuine up close and personal as she was elegant and beautiful from afar — I knew I wasn’t the best-qualified […]
Sarasota Blues Festival VIP Offering Doesn’t Fit
The Sarasota Blues and Music Festival is irking me with its $75 VIP tickets. VIP? In a parking lot across from Ed Smith Stadium? Whatever! Read my outrage at this week’s Sense and the City column in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Sense and the City: At SMH, kindness is the cure
My mom recently underwent surgery at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and the experience has made me reflect on the importance of kindness and care in helping folks recover. And so I turned those thoughts into this week’s Sense and the City, out in the Ticket today. Here’s a sample: It’s easy, when you arrive at a […]