Anna Marie is an award-winning journalist with bylines in U.S. News & World Report, ABA Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Prepared Foods Magazine, ANL.gov and others. Her book, We Are Eagles: Inspiring Stories of Immigrant Women Who Took Bold Steps in Life Through Literacy, is available on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and elsewhere.
She began as a reporter, columnist and section editor at the Daily Southtown, where she covered Chicago's south suburbs and interviewed myriad TV and film celebrities. She earned various awards from the former Suburban Press Club of Chicago for her Spotlight on Youth column and stories about a community college professor charged with espionage in the former Yugoslavia. She also received various honors, including Woman of the Year from Evergreen Park High School, her alma mater.
She then worked as speechwriter and spokeswoman for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, under both Democrat and Republican administrations. She volunteered in similar roles for two gubernatorial campaigns in Illinois. Next, she became a staff reporter for the American Bar Association’s Bar Leader Magazine, covering bar associations and legal cases nationwide.
Afterward, Anna Marie worked as a senior writer at the Daily Herald and its Business Ledger Magazine in Arlington Heights, Illinois, where she interviewed CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and even questioned President George W. Bush during a Chicago press conference. She also won a Chicago Headline Club Lisagor Award as part of a team reporting on the Illinois minimum wage. She developed the idea and was the lead writer and coordinator of the four-part series, "The Dream Foreclosed," about residential foreclosures. The series won first place awards in public service from the Illinois Associated Press Editors Association, the Chicago Journalists Association's Sarah Brown Boyden Award, the National Federation of Press Women, the Illinois Woman's Press Association as well as the Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Awards Meritorious Achievement. In addition, she earned a first-place award in business reporting from the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association for a story about the impact of an acquisition on a small company. During this time, she did guest appearances on ABC7-TV, WBBM Radio and WGN Radio in Chicago.
In 2017, she decided to leave the Daily Herald to do freelance writing for print and online publications as well as editing book manuscripts for Fig Factor Media. She also writes for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory internal and external websites. In 2020, she founded Forest Glen Media LLC.
Anna Marie is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Editorial Freelancers Association, Chicago Writers Association, Independent Writers of Chicago, , Chicago Journalists Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Chicago Headline Club.
She is a graduate of St. Xavier University in Chicago, where she lives with her husband, James P. Tomczyk, a project manager and a lifelong Chicago Bears fan.