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Anna Marie Kukec Tomczyk is a Chicago-based, award-winning writer and reporter with bylines in U.S. News & World Report, ABA Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Prepared Foods Magazine, Chicago Bride Magazine and others. Her book, We Are Eagles: Inspiring Stories of Immigrant Women Who Took Bold Steps in Life Through Literacy, is available on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and elsewhere. In addition, she has been a freelance proofreader and copy editor of book manuscripts for a Chicago area publishing company.
She began her career as a news reporter, columnist and TV section editor at the Daily Southtown newspaper, covering Chicago’s south suburbs and interviewed TV and film celebrities. She earned various awards from the former Suburban Press Club of Chicago for her Spotlight on Youth column and stories about a local college professor charged with espionage in the former Yugoslavia. She then worked as speechwriter and spokeswoman for the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, under both Democrat and Republican administrations. She volunteered in similar roles for two gubernatorial campaigns in Illinois. Next, she became a staff reporter for the American Bar Association’s Bar Leader Magazine, covering bar associations, legal issues and cases nationwide.
Afterward, Anna Marie worked as a senior writer at the Daily Herald and its Business Ledger Magazine in Arlington Heights, Illinois, where she interviewed CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, business leaders and even questioned President George W. Bush during a press conference. She also won a Chicago Headline Club Lisagor Award as part of a team reporting on the minimum wage. She was the lead writer and coordinator of the four-part series, “The Dream Foreclosed,” about residential foreclosures that earned first place awards in public service from the Illinois Associated Press Editors Association, the Chicago Journalists Association’s Sarah Brown Boyden Award, the National Federation of Press Women, the Illinois Woman’s Press Association as well as the Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Awards Meritorious Achievement. In addition, she earned a first-place award in business reporting from the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association for a story about the impact of an acquisition on a small company. During this time, she did guest appearances on ABC7-TV, WBBM Radio and WGN Radio in Chicago.
In 2017, she decided to leave the Daily Herald and do freelance writing and editing. Besides magazines, she also wrote under the byline of Anna Marie Tomczyk for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory website. In 2020, she founded the book-writing company, Forest Glen Media LLC.
Anna Marie is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association, Chicago Writers Association, Independent Writers of Chicago, Chicago Journalists Association, Society of Professional Journalists, and the Chicago Headline Club. She is a graduate of St. Xavier University in Chicago, where she lives with her husband, Jim Tomczyk.
Subjects
General
Specialties
Law, real estate, consumer issues, business, profiles, celebrity interviews, local and national news, politics, women’s issues, some science.
Skills
- Articles
- Books
- Editing
- Feature writing
- News
- Media relations
- News releases
- Speechwriting
Writing Credits
U.S. News & World Report, ABA Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Daily Herald Business Ledger, Reflejos, Prepared Foods Magazine, Chicago Bride Magazine and others.
Book Credits
We Are Eagles: Inspiring Stories of Immigrant Women Who Took Bold Steps in Life Through Literacy
Awards, Honors, Appointments
While at the Daily Herald newspaper in Chicago, Anna Marie Kukec Tomczyk won a Chicago Headline Club Lisagor Award as part of a team reporting on the minimum wage. She was the lead writer and coordinator of the four-part series, “The Dream Foreclosed,” about residential foreclosures that earned first place awards in public service from the Illinois Associated Press Editors Association, the Chicago Journalists Association’s Sarah Brown Boyden Award, the National Federation of Press Women, the Illinois Woman’s Press Association as well as the Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Awards Meritorious Achievement. In addition, she earned a first-place award in business reporting from the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association for a story about the impact of an acquisition on a small company.
Selected Work
As author, unless indicated otherwise.
We Are Eagles: Inspiring Stories of Immigrant Women Who Took Bold Steps In Life Through Literacy
Maribel, a domestic violence survivor, raised a daughter while cleaning toilets for a living, then later ran her own business and a marathon.
Juanita escaped stalkers by seeking a new life in America.
Blanca rose from housekeeping to management before a corporate decision changed her life.
Teresa married against her father’s wishes, survived an earthquake and natural gas explosions, before settling her family in America and setting four new goals.
Maria found inner strength after her husband’s accident, which led to achieving goals in a new country.
These women and more are among the inspiring immigrants, who left behind poverty and gained confidence and strength as they learned about life through a new language at the Dominican Literacy Center in the Chicago area.
The lives of these women took shape during the first 25 years of the center as they reached milestones that many others took for granted. They also saw their children grow without the fear of poverty or hunger and become the first generation in their families to graduate high school and college.
The center, which started inside a church basement, has since expanded to a large building and then spun off a second center. Today, the Dominican Literacy Center is a bustling learning community that has taught thousands of immigrants the baffling language of American English.
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