Amanda Knox quietly writing for West Seattle newspaper
Nov 5, 2014, 5:48 AM | Updated: 5:48 am
Amanda Knox is in the news again, but this time she’s writing the stories instead of having them written about her.
The West Seattle-native and UW student who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison following a murder conviction has quietly been contributing arts articles for the West Seattle Herald and Westside Weekly.
Publisher Ken Robinson tells MyNorthwest.com Knox reached out to him over the summer, offering to cover local theater.
“We said yes and she sent something in and it was good. And she asked if we wanted more and we said yes, and she started sending us play reviews and book reviews.”
Since then Knox has written nearly a dozen articles. Robinson says she’s gone virtually unnoticed, with the reaction mostly positive.
“Some of the people who connected with the reviews have sent brief positive comments but really not much. I got just one nasty-gram from a guy in New York,” he says.
Robinson, whose family has operated the West Seattle Herald and other local papers since 1923, says the paper covered Knox’ legal struggles extensively. But he says her celebrity had nothing to do with giving her a chance.
“She grew up here. It’s her hometown paper,” Robinson says.
As for her writing?
“She’s an intelligent person with knowledge of the theater and plays and she has a nice touch,” he says.
Robinson says he has yet to meet Knox in person. All contacts are through email. But he says the arrangement is working out well and he hopes to give her more freelance assignments going forward.
Knox, who studied creative writing at UW, was convicted in 2009 of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in the small university town of Perugia along with her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
An appeals court in Perugia overturned the conviction in 2011, and Knox returned home to Seattle and resumed her studies at UW.
But prosecutors appealed the acquittal and in January 2014 a court in Florence reinstated the murder convictions. The court also increased the sentence to over 28 years.
Knox has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence.
