Born in 1955, Claudia was exceptionally bright and loved reading as a child (often late into the night, under a sheet, by torchlight). During her childhood, she took enormous joy from the writings of Dr Seuss, J.R.R. Tolkien and many poets, most especially William Butler Yeats (whose tower in Ireland she visited in 2006 - see photo right ->)
Claudia never went to journalism school (and honestly was unimpressed with most graduates of such courses, believing a knowledge of and passion for the English language was the most important asset). But while a Freshman at Yale, she fell in love with the idea and was deeply engaged in the Yale student paper. She then fell in love with the idea of journalism, and went through several apprenticeships by approaching local and national newspapers and asking for work.
While living in Chicago, where she was studying for an MBA at the Chicago Business School, she landed a menial job as assistant to the futures page writers. Here she made mistakes which she later described as formative. She then moved to several other areas and it took almost another 5 years of trial and error before she landed a job as a gopher at the WSJ. She quickly rose, becoming managing editor of Policy Review, and came to prominence there when a colleague was asked in 1984 to review a new book by Dr Seuss, the Butter Battle Book. In discussion Claudia noted that the obvious method to refute the pacifist instincts of this new book were to respond in kind, in "Seuss verse". She was tasked to demonstrate and had this first article (linked below) under her byline published on July 2, 1984.
She went on to write many hundreds of articles, both news and opinion, including a great number of unsigned opinion pieces, over the following 35 years.
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