My story about a new mall in development in Sarasota was featured on Jim Romenesko because of its unique design in print.
The Herald-Tribune ran the story horizontally with a panoramic shot of the mall down the rail.
Here’s a link to the story: Four months early, University Town Center looks ready for shoppers
By Justine Griffin for the Herald-Tribune
A peculiar rumor about Florida’s No. 1 grocer, Publix Supermarkets, and upscale organic retailer Whole Foods Market grew legs and took off over the weekend.
The viral story about Publix buying Whole Foods spread quickly, appearing in newspapers across Florida and around the Internet. Whether or not you like the idea — and no one knows for sure where this rumor started, or why — it seems unlikely to be true.
The buzz began last week, when Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods’ stock jumped 6.6 percent on Wall Street in two days, and options activity spiked. Whole Foods’ profile also was raised when it was ranked on the 2014 Fortune 500 list announced last week.
Publix, too, has seen substantial growth so far this year. The Lakeland-based retailer posted $7.8 billion in sales in the first quarter, up about 4 percent compared with the same period last year.
But their growth is no reason the companies might merge, analysts say.
Read more here.
By Justine Griffin for the Herald-Tribune
Southwest Florida, already flush with new arrivals, is poised to welcome even more new grocery brands as companies in the West continue to expand into the Southeast.
Retail analysts buzzed about Sprouts Farmers Market last month at the International Council of Shopping Centers RECON convention in Las Vegas.
The boutique-like grocery chain concept out of Arizona competes with Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s, and is now one of the fastest-growing retailers in the country; it has more than 170 stores in nine states.
Sprouts now has its eye on the Southeast, with four stores set to open in Georgia this summer. Analysts believe Sprouts will start opening stores in Florida within the year.
“Sprouts is hot and heavy this year, and definitely marching in the direction of Florida,” said Jeff Green, retail analyst with Phoenix-based Jeff Green Partners. “They fill a cool niche and have amazing produce turnover.”
The Sarasota-Bradenton market is no newcomer when it comes to drawing new and emerging brands: The Fresh Market opened its first store in Southwest Florida in a Kohl’s-anchored plaza on University Parkway in 2009.
A second store opened in Bradenton in 2012, and the company is considering opening a third in southern Sarasota County.
In 2012, Trader Joe’s opened its second store in Florida on Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, and Costco Wholesale arrived at the Sarasota Square mall.
Gordon Food Service, a grocery chain that caters mostly to the restaurant supply business, is building its second Southwest Florida store in the former Sound Advice building, near Stickney Point Road.
The company is rumored to be opening a third in Port Charlotte later this year.
Then there’s Wawa, a Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain known for its sandwiches and grocery options. It has filed building permits to open its first Sarasota County store by next year on top of three sites in Manatee County and another targeting Venice.
Despite all those big chains coming into the market — and the ones already here, locally owned smaller retailers like Richard’s Foodporium and Morton’s Gourmet Market — analysts are confident there’s room enough for Sprouts to thrive here, too.
Read more here.
The Cost of Life ran excerpts in the following publications:
The Cost of Life: My experience as a first-time egg donor ran an as an excerpt on the Huffington Post Women page on June 5, 2014.
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An original excerpt published in The Riverter Magazine on April 18, 2014.
Editor and founder of The Riveter, Kaylen Ralph, published a Q&A with Justine Griffin the week prior to the excerpt.
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We Are Egg Donors, an egg donor activist and resources group, published a Q&A with Justine Griffin on May 21, 2014.
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The Gainesville Sun and the Ocala Star-Banner, both Halifax Media Group-owned newspapers, published 900-word excerpts of The Cost of Life on Sunday, May 25.
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Longreads featured The Cost of Life on its website in June.
Slate.com’s Double X Podcast mentioned The Cost of Life and linked to the story in a July 10 episode.
The Washington Post pulled quotes and reporting from The Cost of Life in a July 21 Storyline piece.
Medium featured The Cost of Life in this June 5 piece about the fertility industry and again in this Jan. 17 piece about the pursuit of pregnancy.
Wired Magazine mentioned The Cost of Life in this Oct. 24 piece about egg freezing.
Paste Magazine included The Cost of Life on a list of the best short read pieces in January.
The Crow’s Nest (USF student publication) wrote about The Cost of Life on Nov. 15, 2015.
Photo by Elaine Litherland
Inspired to act by childhood loss, a young reporter became an egg donor. In this way, she helped a couple have a baby. She also learned tough lessons about a donor’s worth once her contract is fulfilled.
I have always been the wimp in my family, the first to cry or complain at any sign of pain or discomfort.
My parents and younger brother have taken great pleasure in reenacting all my greatest “near-death” experiences and illnesses at the dinner table over the years. Like the time I fell off the back of a golf cart and was convinced I’d broken my collar bone. (I didn’t.)
Or the time I thought I had meningitis. (It was just a cold.)
So the idea of donating eggs – injecting myself with hormones and undergoing an invasive surgery, all for someone else to have a baby — seemed a little far-fetched to my family.
A couple who lived half a world away plucked me out of an online library of hundreds of women who were willing to donate their sex cells to strangers. Each of us had been broken down by our general attributes. My specifications, a fertility agency would later tell me, were desirable: 25 years old, green eyes, 5-feet, 10-inches tall, blond hair, a 3.6 university grade point average and a burgeoning new career.
Those same specifications are what make my parents beam with pride.
One night last summer at my parent’s dinner table, I told my mom and dad that I wanted to help somebody have a baby. The usual lively suppertime conversation and laughter died down, and my parents lost their appetites. They didn’t want to joke about that time I drove my brother’s four-wheeler into a tree anymore.
I told them I am like the thousands of other women — the daughters, sisters, girlfriends or wives at someone else’s dinner table — who donate their eggs to couples who cannot conceive a child on their own.
With an estimated 7.3 million people experiencing infertility in the United States, or one out of eight couples, the demand for young women like me who voluntarily undergo hormone drug treatment and egg retrieval surgery is high. And with the average compensation for this kind of donation at about $5,000 in Florida, the allure of this relatively new medical procedure is attracting more and more young women, despite the many unknowns.
The eggs in my ovaries made me valuable. Without them, there is no in vitro fertilization, no surrogate mothers, no baby making business. As it unfolded, I began to feel like a commodity rather than a human being, a means to an end on the infant assembly line.