Associated Press

As a freelancer based in western Massachusetts Maria Trombly regularly covered events for the Associated Press, with both byline and unbylined articles running on the wire, from 1998 to 2000.

For example, when a reporter took vacation time, she filled in at the Springfield bureau.

And when a deadly fire broke out in a warehouse in Worcester, she spent more than a week at the site, dawn to dusk, covering the events as they unfolded.

At a time when she was mostly writing business and technology features, AP assignments provided an interesting and invigorating change of pace.