Writing.
Before relocating from Pittsburgh to New York in 1992, Mr. Sewald wrote many features and reviews for regional publications, most notably the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Several articles he authored concerning city leadership issues for Executive Report, Pittsburgh’s business magazine, received Golden Quill® award nominations for excellence in regional journalism. He also contributed articles to the California-based music magazine BAM and American Film. A feature for the latter about former silent-screen star Lina Basquette’s last fling in pictures at the age of 85 netted him a guest invitation to the prestigious Telluride Film Festival.
In 2003, after 11 years of working in New York City, Mr. Sewald moved his family back to Pittsburgh, but has continued to divide his writing and other media work between his hometown and Manhattan. Since 2006, he has written a regular personality profile feature called “What Do I Know?” for Pittsburgh Quarterly magazine, which received Golden Quill® awards in 2008 and 2009 from the Western Pennsylvania Press Club.
“The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht:
Memoirs of America’s Most Controversial Forensic Pathologist”
By Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D. and Jeff Sewald
For more than 50 years, Cyril Wecht has been featured in the media as a colorful and often controversial forensic science expert. But in addition to offering testimony in many important and high-profile death cases — John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, O.J. Simpson and JonBenét Ramsey, to name some — he has also appeared in court as a high-profile defendant, a fact that has given him an insider’s look at the workings of American justice. Tried for public corruption on both the local and federal levels, Dr. Wecht learned some harsh lessons about ruthlessness and opportunism, not only in his hometown of Pittsburgh, but also at the hands of politically partisan officials from the U.S. Department of Justice. The book, co-written by Dr. Wecht and Jeff Sewald, tells the story of the remarkable and consequential life of a man who has never failed to challenge the system.
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