Danny Kucharsky has transformed school days writing for high school and university newspapers and delivering newspapers in the early morning hours into a career that combines journalism with corporate communications.

After graduating with a Masters in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario, he worked on staff as a reporter at the Montreal Gazette (covering everything from politics and human interest features to deadly fires and Stanley Cup riots), as a business writer at This Week in Business and as a reseacher at CBC-Radio.

But for the last several years he has been his own boss, dividing his time working as a freelance journalist and doing corporate communications. He has written for well over 50 different magazines and newspapers – from mainstream publications like The Globe and Mail, Chicago Tribune and Maclean’s to business and specialized trade magazines like Profit Magazine, The Northern Miner and medical magazines like Medical Post.

On the corporate communications side, Danny creates Internet content and writes and edits press releases, company newsletters, brochures and other communications for businesses large and small. For example, he has written brochures for the Business Development Bank of Canada, a real estate column for the Montreal Real Estate Board, edited newsletters and news releases for major pharmaceutical firms and has provided medical conference coverage for healthcare communication firms and online sites.

Danny’s book Sacred Ground on de la Savane: Montreal’s Baron de Hirsch Cemetery (Véhicule Press), details the history of the Jewish cemetery and its burial practices, reveals the stories of many of the people buried there, provides a walking tour of the more than 100-year-old cemetery and more. (Read an excerpt here). Here’s what the critics have had to say: Sacred Ground “contains such a wealth of information that just about anyone from the Jewish community – and probably the community at large – will have a hard time putting it down,” Mike Cohen, The Jewish Tribune. “A comprehensive and fascinating social history, filled with facts, anecdotes and sketches of some of the dead,” Janice Arnold, The Canadian Jewish News. (See reviews here and here)

As the Montreal correspondent for Marketing Magazine for eight years, Danny covered the advertising and marketing scene in Quebec for the Canadian magazine.

Over the years, Danny has been nominated for several writing awards for features, profiles and columns he has written. He won a gold award from the Canadian Business Press for a feature that appeared in Marketing on innovative ways funerals and cemeteries are marketing their services. He also received a gold award for a feature on an offbeat Labatt beer advertising campaign and a gold award for an indepth feature on the marketing prowess of Viagra maker Pfizer Inc.

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