Meet A.J. Flick | Writer, editor and author

We had the good fortune of connecting with A.J. Flick and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi A.J., how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I was born in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. My family moved to the Philippines when I was 6, after my father got a job with the Civil Service and became base engineer at Clark Air Base. We also lived for a year in the mountains at John Hay Air Base. While we were overseas, we traveled around the Philippine Islands and across Southeast Asia, at a time when not many Americans were tourists. We traveled to Tokyo, saw Mt. Fuji and explored Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand.

Even though I was very young, our overseas life gave my siblings and me a worldview that perhaps many of our peers back in the States didn’t have. We tasted new cuisines and learned snippets of several languages. It was also strange in a way because some of the common things my generation experienced – such as watching the moon landing – were different for us. My cousins were allowed to stay up late to watch it. On the other side of the world, we got out of school early to watch it.

When I was 11, we moved to Southern Indiana. When I was 15, we moved to Southwestern Arizona. My parents stayed in Yuma. My brother and sister came to Tucson to go to the University of Arizona and stayed. I also attended UA, but while everyone stayed in Arizona, I moved (for jobs) to Texas, Phoenix, Washington DC, Maryland, Casa Grande and finally, Tucson.

The vagabond life made me curious about people from different backgrounds, which is why I became a journalist.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I love to write. I always have. I knew I wanted to be some kind of writer at an early age. I was lucky to have parents and teachers who encouraged me. When my big sister started writing for our junior high school newsletter, I had to follow her when I was old enough. It was then I was set on being a journalist. In high school, I interned at a local radio/TV station and when the internship was over, they hired me part-time during school, full-time over summers. By my senior year, I was editor of the school newspaper, attended classes in the morning and worked at the TV station afternoons and evenings, first as a crew member and eventually as an 0n-air reporter and newscast producer. In the spring of my senior year, a triple death penalty trial was held, which I covered it in the afternoons.

In those days, it wasn’t necessary to have a journalism degree to get a job in journalism. The TV news director begged me to stay in town and work at that station after I graduated, but I had my mind set to study journalism at the University of Arizona. After graduation, I was hired over the phone to work for the daily newspaper in Lubbock, Texas. After that, I made it my mission to keep getting better jobs. Over the years, I covered features, sports, food, entertainment, news and almost everything in between. I established an internal wire service for the community newspaper arm of Dow Jones, reported out of the White House and Congress and met a lot of celebrities.

The last eight years of my newspaper career were spent on the crime beat, which I found fascinating. There’s a reason there are so many true-crime shows. Truth is stranger than fiction. When the newspaper I was working for, the Tucson Citizen, was starting to fold, I thought it was time to get out of journalism, at least on a daily basis. I wrote a couple of film scripts, which got some awards and a few producers’ interest. I freelanced for Bloomberg News Service, most notably on the Jared Loughner case. I went to work for a trade publisher, which was a side of journalism I didn’t know existed, really. I worked for an ad agency and a travel guide publisher.

I consider myself fortunate that, since the age of 17, I’ve been paid to write. The pinnacle was having my first book, “Toxic Rage,” published in 2018. It’s about a murder case I covered for the Citizen. I have two book projects I’m putting together and hoping one will get published this year. That’s my future. That’s my goal, to be a full-time author.

It hasn’t been easy and I’ve made a lot of sacrifices, but I wouldn’t change my journey.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, being a true-crime author and an experienced local crime reporter, I like to mix in a few crime scenes when i show people around Tucson. I show them the parking lot where the victim in my best-selling, true-crime book “Toxic Rage” was killed, the Pioneer Hotel where a fire broke out and a young Black man was wrongly convicted for starting it and the bungalow where John Dillinger hid out when he was in Tucson, among other scenes.

But I like the nicer places in Tucson, too, of course. I take them to Gates Pass in the Tucson Mountains west of the city to see the spectacular view. When Old Tucson was operating, I took them there (and hope to again soon). I’ve driven guests out west to Sells, to the impressive Tohono O’odham Nation Culture Center and Museum.

In town, I take guests to experience our famous City of Gastronomy offerings, from the 23 Miles of Mexican Food (I love El Charro and Pico de Gallo Taqueria). For brunch, I would take them to Ghini’s French Caffe, which has so many delicious breakfast choices, yet I always go for Eggs Provencal. For dinner, I like the newish Locale Italian restaurant and the steakhouses El Corral and Silver Saddle.

Local museums worth seeing are the Center for Creative Photography and Arizona State Museum, both on the University of Arizona campus, and the nearby Arizona Historical Society.

We may go up to Mount Lemmon and visit cooler weather (or snow). I often take guests to the San Xavier Mission and always get some red chili frybread.

Depending on what’s in town, we may go to see an Arizona Theater Company play, a concert at the Rialto, the Tucson Book Festival in the spring, Tucson Meet Yourself in the fall or the Peace Fair in the winter.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I credit the University of Arizona Journalism Department for giving me the foundation for my journalism career. At the time, it was the only accredited journalism program in Arizona, but it was small enough that I got to know the professors and they got to know me. They prized real working experience there – still do – so we were being taught by former (some still current) working journalists. We gained practical experience, writing for publications. I participated in a summertime foreign correspondence course in Great Britain, interviewing politicians, scientists, artists and everyday people while experiencing the culture scenes of London and Edinburgh as well as Cambridge, Stratford-on-Avon and Stonehenge. In the 1990s, when the UA threatened to close the school, I was part of a group who organized a forum to show the president and provost how valuable a journalism degree was to many professions. I’m proud that we saved it. For one year, I was an adjunct professor there, teaching editing. The best experience was seeing a student’s face when they learned something from me.

Instagram: aj_flick