About

Clint Thomsen is a freelance writer based in northern Utah.  Most of his work appears in the various publications of the Transcript Bulletin Publishing Company.  His pride and joy– and his first foot in the door of the writing industry– is his weekly outdoor column in the Tooele Transcript Bulletin, which was named best column in a non-daily newspaper for 2008 by the Utah Press Association.  Clint took second place in UPA’s 2009 contest, where he also won an award for best feature story (The Heart of Vernon). If you’d like him to write something for you, send him an email at bonnevillemariner [at] gmail [dot] com.

For some frequently asked questions, let’s turn it over to him:

WRITING

What formal training do you have?
None, unless you count high school AP English, the toughest (and most useful) class I’ve ever taken in my life.  My political science college major was useless when it came to paying the bills, but it taught me how to research and build defensible arguments.

I didn’t think much about writing professionally until an executive at the office called me in to praise an email I had written, which he happened to have been copied on.  My passion for investigative journalism and telling stories was born when I documented a road trip to Nevada in search of ghost towns.

What is your style?

It depends on the subject matter, but my style ranges from straight and concise (think technical manuals) to meandering and verbose (blog posts, my outdoors column). My narrative is observational and I tend to write it in what I call “neurotic first-person” (examples here and here).

What’s up with the all-over-the-map content on the blog?
I focus on a combination of the great outdoors, music, and history, with geologic, pop culture, and tech undertones.  The connection between these concepts isn’t always obvious, but it’s there (if only in my ADD mind).  Read long enough and you’ll piece it together.

PHILOSOPHY

Why Bonneville Mariner?
Between 32,000 and 16,800 years ago, the land that would later become Utah was covered by an ancient freshwater sea.  The existence and disappearance of Lake Bonneville literally shaped the topography of western Utah. Its signature is prolifically etched throughout the eastern Great Basin.

I grew up exploring the mountains and deserts of Utah- essentially navigating the islands in and the floor of Lake Bonneville- hence “BonnevilleMariner.”

From it’s pristine mountain lakes to vast seas of desert, my part of the West is brimming with history and natural wonders. It’s a land largely untouched by human progress- where ancient petroglyphs grace sandstone walls and ghost towns dot the valleys.