Faith Cotter, Neighbor

Faith Cotter is a senior at Point Park University, majoring in print journalism with a minor in English. Writing has taken Cotter on numerous adventures, from meeting author John Grisham to camping out in the back of a Mayflower truck in a state park occupied by over 10,000 other campers during a scouting event in the fall of 2010.

Outside of reporting for Patch, Cotter has been published, among other places, with the Innocence Institute of Point Park University's website and magazine, on the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's website, and with the Point Park News Service. Beginning in September 2011, she will be working as an intern in the news department of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

She was selected as the recpient of the 2011 Society of Professional Journalists Regional Mark of Excellence Award in the category of Non-Fiction Magazine Article for an investigative piece she co-authored for The Innocence Institute of Point Park University's Justice Magazine. The article placed first in the regional competition and went on to win the National Mark of Excellence Award. She was also awarded the 2011 Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh Scholarship for Journalism Students and the 2011 Pennsylvania Women's Press Association scholarship based on clips she submitted. In the spring of 2010, a human interest article Cotter wrote entitled "Coping with life after the cure" won for Best Feature Story at Point Park's Annual School of Communication Awards.

Following an expected graduation date of December 2011, she plans to "not live in a box" and instead find a job as a news/investigative reporter. She loves writing (and reading) human interest pieces and would also like to dabble in medical journalism. One day she hopes to teach English lit and writing at a collegiate level and publish works of fiction and creative nonfiction on the side, all while maintaining a job within the journalism industry.

She currently teaches small children archery at  Heritage Reservation's Camp Independence, a Cub scout camp where she's employed as a field-sports director, and she blogs about her misadventures there in the off-season. She also enjoys white-water rafting, jumping off of boulders into the Youghiogheny river, reading, conversations about life, death and philosophy over turtle cheesecake at Tom's Diner in Dormont, and Harry Potter.

Cotter is also a member of Alpha Chi National College Honor Society, and despite her objections, wrote this biography in the third-person. You can reach her at faithcotter87[at]gmail[dot]com or view her online portfolio here.