Biography

Born in Rochester, New York

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

, she graduated cum laude from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 in 1976. She is the sister of Candace O'Connor

Candace O'Connor

Candace O'Connor is a St. Louis, Missouri-based freelance writer and editor.Her recent book projects include a history of Northwest Community Hospital called 'Rooted in Community; Reaching New Heights' ; a history of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work called 'What We Believe'; a history...

.

She worked for 14 years at the Hartford Courant rising to the rank of assistant managing editor for features. O'Connor led the creation and/or redesign of many of that newspaper's feature sections. She left in 2003 for the Houston Chronicle

Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...

 where she became deputy managing editor/features. At the Chronicle, she wrote a daily memo to her staff about trends in popular culture and discoveries she made about life in Houston. She eventually turned the memo into "MeMo", one of the Chronicle's first blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

s. she is deputy managing editor of that newspaper and a frequent panelist on the National Public Radio show "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!".

She was named interim editor of the San Antonio Express-News on Sept. 20, 2011, replacing Robert Rivard.