Paula Routly

Burlington

Publisher and Editor at Seven Days

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Articles

Paula Routly: Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail With a Poet

1 week ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge When I was 19, I hiked about a third of the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile footpath that stretches from Mexico to Canada, through some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the western U.S. In 1979 cellphones had not yet been invented, so there was no GPS or calling 911. Cheryl Strayed had not shouldered a backpack and written the bestseller Wild.
Paula Routly: Seven Days Reporters Go the Distance

2 weeks ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge Back in February, three weeks into President Donald Trump's second term, we dispatched news reporter Kevin McCallum to the Midwest to cover U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his then-fledgling "Fight Oligarchy" tour. It was a last-minute decision — with expensive flights — that thoroughly upended editorial plans for the forthcoming issue.
Seven Days Wins Big at New England Newspaper Convention

1 month ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge Seven Days won 37 awards at the New England Newspaper Convention two weekends ago in Portland, Maine. On behalf of the paper, news editor Matthew Roy collected 14 framed certificates for winning work published between August 1, 2023, and July 21, 2024, in categories ranging from investigative journalism to food writing. The paper took top honors in reporting on the arts, crime and courts, education, and climate change.
Paula Routly: Making Dollars and Sense of Medicare

1 month ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge I'm two weeks away from a big birthday that I had been looking forward to for a single reason: Medicare. While my advancing age — 65 — is nothing I feel like celebrating, the promise of health care insurance relief, at the metaphorical 18-mile mark of life's marathon, had been motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I helped care for my mom in her final years.
Paula Routly: Going to the Movies Again in Burlington

1 month ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge Steve MacQueen watched last Friday's 7 p.m. screening of I'm Still Here from the projection booth in the Film House at Burlington's Main Street Landing. From up there, the executive director of the Vermont International Film Foundation had a clear view of 220 occupied seats. The Oscar-winning movie "sold out hard," as MacQueen put it. "It was as crowded as that room can be." The earlier show, at 4 p.m., did almost as well.
Paula Routly: Why I Decided to Give Up Drinking

1 month ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge I've never been much of a drinker. That's probably because I've seen firsthand the damage booze can do. Every day after work, almost without fail, my father would get hammered. "Grown-up hour" started the minute he got home, either with a martini or a glass of Scotch. Then another martini or Scotch. Or three.
Five Years After 2020, Vermont Is Still in Pandemic Recovery

2 months ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge I don't think it's an overstatement to describe the COVID-19 pandemic as a collective trauma. It was in Vermont, anyway. Five years ago this week began a chain of history-making events that most of us would rather forget — the psychological term is dissociative amnesia.
Paula Routly: Feeding the Local Economy in Tough Times

2 months ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge Kismet is my new go-to lunch spot. A short walk from the Seven Days office in Burlington, the Turkish restaurant at the south end of Battery Street offers sit-down service and is open all afternoon. I can nosh on a mezze platter and have a work meeting. The space is so big, I know I'll get a table. That's a nice way of saying: Business is not booming.
Bernie Sanders Has New-Old Message: 'Fight Oligarchy'

2 months ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge A lot of planning goes into assembling this newspaper each week. Cover stories, in particular, may be in the works for months. Typically, half a dozen or so are being reported, shaped, written or edited at any given moment. But sometimes we feel compelled to respond to the news of the day, which is why we decided to scrap our carefully laid plans this week and put Vermont's senior U.S. senator on the cover — again.
Paula Routly: Flying Breeze From Burlington to Florida

2 months ago | sevendaysvt.com | Paula Routly

click to enlarge It's a privilege and a luxury to be able to escape Vermont in the winter. But flying in and out of the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport in February has a Russian roulette quality to it. Because BTV offers so few nonstop flights to balmy destinations, there's a decent chance of getting stuck in a connecting airport between here and there. You can try to game it.