Misstropolis Contributors
Robin Hauck - Editor in Chief
A mad collector of magazines, art books, quotes and images, Robin finds inspiration everywhere from the world of high art (Kara Walker is a longtime idol) to debauched humor (Human Giant anyone?). A mother of three girls, Robin has worked in London, LA, New York and Boston with the likes of Spike Jonze, Pixar, Microsoft, and Bo Smith at the MFA Film Dept. She developed her perspective on the industry while working at Propaganda Films in LA, Chelsea Pictures in NY and studying at Denison, USC and The New School. She has a MS in media studies from MIT and was Editor in Chief of the blog Beantowners.com. If you want to know the recipe for her secret sauce, read carefully between the lines of every Misstropolis article, tell ALL your friends to do the same, and you just might find it.
Andrea Pyenson - Executive Editor
Andrea Pyenson is Misstropolis' Table and Life editor. She has been a freelance food writer and editor since 2000, contributing regularly to The Boston Globe's "Food" and "Life at Home" sections. She also has written for Fine Cooking, Boston magazine, Natural Health, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Parents' Paper, Tufts University Health and Nutrition Newsletter, Newsweek and BusinessWeek on subjects ranging from must-have baking tools to restaurant round-ups to organic gardening.
Katie Green - Head of Marketing
Originally from Michigan, Katie moved east after college and began her career in marketing at Regan Communications. Since then she’s lived in Beacon Hill, the South End, Dedham and Dover has had four beautiful children. Her professional career has been equally impressive, with successful stints at Digitas, where she worked for 10 years, and Fidelity. Katie brings an energy and passion to the Misstropolis marketing efforts which are key to its meteoric rise in the world wide web-osphere. It’s no wonder the whole world is going Green.
Lenore Shannon - Features Editor
Lenore Shannon is the writer and producer of the podcast series, “The Tribulations of Paulette.”
She has worked as a writer, producer and actress in Boston radio, television and public relations for most of her adult life. She is the voice of the popular NPR quiz show “Says You”, and a frequent panelist, where she proudly personifies the dementia inherent in motherhood. Between laundry loads, she translates obscene Attic poetry.
Alisa Neely - Style Editor
Alisa Neely is Misstropolis’ Style Goddess. Having spent many years as a department store stylist, clothing designer for her children’s line Due Sorelle, and part-time employee of Oilily, Alisa recently decided to pull all those pieces together into the perfect outfit: personal style consultancy co. Scout. Alisa credits her unique approach to glamour, beauty, and not taking fashion too seriously to her two luminous daughters. Now that’s true style.
Susan Graage - Culture Editor
Susan Graage is mom to three humans, one canine and two felines. Her husband must constantly convince her that getting a goat would not be an express ticket to Nirvana. She formerly directed a drawings gallery in Soho working with bad boy and girl German artists and the naughty people who collected them. Her other lifelong passions are exercise and books, a union that she will encourage to the readers of Misstropolis.
Rebecca Dorr - Features Editor
Rebecca is a magazine writer and film producer with a great passion for all things arts and culture. She has contributed to numerous top-notch magazines, including Inc., Technology Review, 02138, Esquire, and closer to home, Boston. She is also the co-founder of Devilfish Films LLC, which is currently developing its first feature.
Jenna Teeson - Photo Editor
Jenna recently moved back to MA after spending 4 years working as assistant photo editor at National Geographic Traveler magazine in Washington DC. A graduate of the Ohio University School of Visual Communication, Jenna enjoys anything photo and recently joined the staff at Heath Robbins Photography as Marketing Director. When she's not marketing or editing photos she is riding horses.
Tom Meek
Tom Meek is a film critic for the Boston Phoenix and a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics. He appears regularly on WRKO radio and New England Cable News. His ramblings and rants have also appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Web del Sol, Film Threat and E! Online. Tom also writes fiction and nonfiction and has appeared in four anthologies in the past year, including Grub Street's ten year commemorative, Hacks. He is currently working on a collection of short stories that take place in Boston and the surrounding cityscape. Tom lives in Cambridge, practices yoga, and rides his bike everywhere.
Rachael Moeller Gorman
Rachael Moeller Gorman loves science and medicine but hates being confused, so she enjoys digging into new research and figuring out why we should care about it. She's also written for EatingWell, Proto, Health, The Boston Globe's Health/Science section, and Discover.
Abigail Jones
Abigail Jones is the co-author of the New York Times and Boston Globe bestseller Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School. Her work has also appeared in USA Today and Boston Magazine, and on the Huffington Post. Jones has worked at the Atlantic, has a masters in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 2003. Though she looks for any excuse to travel abroad, she lives in Boston, MA, where she loves playing squash and discovering new restaurants.
Dawn Silvia
Dominating the spelling bee scene in fifth grade was the first sign that Dawn Silvia would find herself in a long-term love affair with words. College writing instructor, communications manager for a major law firm, avid Scrabble player—you name it; she's there "getting some." If she had the chance, she would high five the person who got the words "bling" and "bootylicious" in the dictionary. Formerly a food writer at Beantowners and a frequent contributor to Boston Magazine, Dawn is now an editorial guinea pig, testing the waters on foods, stunts, and crazy cosmetic procedures to answer your questions and quell all your fears. That's right, quell is worth 14 points.
Terri Rutter
Terri Rutter is a marketing communications guru with more than 20 years experience. Her areas of expertise include medical and clinical research, neuroscience, and public health. She also writes prolifically about food, health and fitness and has been published in the Washington Post, Associated Press, the Boston Herald and the British Medical Journal among others. She is an graduate of the Professional Chef’s Program at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, and enjoyed a short but enlightening cooking career before returning full-time to writing. Check out her blog on losing weight, eating well, and living outrageously at http://gettheskinnywithme.blogspot.com/
Wally Holland
Wally's a writer/editor/layabout whose written output includes several half-finished Great American Novels, the greatest blog you've never read (Wax Banks) and a hand-wavey thesis from MIT about video game aesthetics and narratology, and…other stuff. In seventh grade he got seventh place in the National Spelling Bee: still coasting on that near-victory, 14 years later.
Heather Miller
Heather Miller is the product of a Manhattan childhood, an English boarding school, the Tisch School of the Arts, a reckless junior year in Prague, and assorted Boston-area grad schools. An author and editor of several books for children, she is a publishing consultant and lives in Cambridge. In her spare time, she runs the MIT Book Club of New York.
Clara Silverstein
Clara Silverstein has contributed articles about food to the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, Runner’s World, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. She is author of two cookbooks forthcoming this fall: The Boston Chef's Table (Globe Pequot Press) and The New England Soup Factory Cookbook (Rutledge Hill Press) with chef Marjorie Druker. She also wrote the memoir White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation (University of Georgia Press), and poems published in several literary magazines. To balance her interest in food, she regularly runs, and finished her second marathon in the fall of 2006.
Erin K. Liedel
Erin K. Liedel makes her living writing and editing: textbook editor, magazine writer, grad student: all writing and editing. In a former life though, she’s sure she was a spy. In her spare time, Erin makes heroic attempts at samba dancing, knitting gifts and singing. She hopes to hit it home, big Papi-style, for your reading enjoyment.
Maxine Effenson Chuck
Maxine Effenson Chuck is co-author of 125 Best Vegan Recipes published by Robert Rose, Inc. and is Senior Development Editor at Pearson Allyn & Bacon Education, Boston. She lives in Brookline with her husband, daughter, two cats and a dog. She also has a grown step-daughter who lives in Seattle..
Annie Copps
Annie B. Copps is a Senior Editor at Yankee magazine where she writes and edits the food and dining pages. She is also a freelance food, wine, and travel writer; and photographer. She is currently writing a cookbook with chef Todd English.
Max Buccini
Max Buccini is an Account Manager at Regan Communications Group, where he works with Equinox Fitness, Mohegan Sun, Mix 98.5, Salvatore's Boston, Coda Bar & Kitchen, and other hospitality focused clients. In 2007, Max was voted one of Boston's "Most Wanted Singles" by Boston Magazine, and was featured on the cover of STUFF@NIGHT as one of the "New Faces of Boston Nightlife." Max's writing has been published in The Boston Globe, The Improper Bostonian, EDGE Publications, Sheckys.com, and Savoir Flair.
Jay Dyckman
Jay Dyckman is a writer living in Los Angeles. He writes for USA Today, and others, and has been invited to write for the Huffington Post’s new humor blog. Recently in a piece in USA Today Weekend he wrote about his fear of nearing the end of the coveted 18-to-34 age demographic. “I get it. It's over. At this point, I am not going to be Punk'd, and my ride will not be Pimp'd.” We love you anyway Jay.
Rachel Travers
Rachel Travers is a freelance food and lifestyle writer who has been contributing to the Boston Globe for 12 years. She also writes for Boston Magazine's Elegant Wedding and Boston Magazine's Home & Garden, as well as contributing to Daily Candy and Boston Common. Although food is her true passion, she also loves mid-century modern furniture, folk art, Hagenauer figurines, and art glass. She began to combine food writing with travel writing until her daughter reached 16, and now she won't even go away for a weekend. She has a cookbook being shopped around and a memoir in the works.
Richard Berkowitz
Richard Berkowitz, a former reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, is a political and public policy analyst. In 2004, he worked on the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry. Current clients include Senator Joseph Biden, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Security Project. When not helping to lose presidential elections for Democrats, he’s usually with his family or lost in the woods with Brady their dog.
Hadley Sharples
Hadley Sharples is a former magazine editor at Cahners Publishing in New York. Since moving from Manhattan to Boston, she has worked as a freelance writer for various publications covering the graphic arts and publishing industries.
Allison Newman
A long time distance runner, Allison discovered yoga when she went looking for challenging exercise with less impact. Allison has been teaching yoga to adults since 2001 and is also certified to teach children, which brings no end of joy to her own, Madelin and Caleb. She has a B.A. in psychology and elementary education from Clark University and a Masters in Social Work from Boston University. She can be reached at newmanyoga@hotmail.com.
Clare Leschin-Hoar
Growing up in small-town Iowa, the first two dishes Clare Leschin-Hoar learned to make were eggy popovers and French chocolate silk pie, though not together. Sadly, she can no longer bake, but she can and does cover sustainable food issues frequently. When she’s not working on stories about raw milk, fair trade coffee or hybrid oysters for publications like The Boston Globe, edibleBoston or Rhode Island Monthly, she can be found at home in Mansfield feeding her children and their friends bizarre foods.
Howie Rubin
Howie Rubin has been the General Manager of Bauer Wines and Spirits for almost thirty years. Before that he ran the London Wine Bar (America's First Wine Bar) in downtown San Francisco, worked as a grape picker for Mayacamas Vineyards in Napa Valley, and was a sommelier at the Breakers Hotel in West Palm Beach. He is a frequent guest on a number of Boston radio stations, but can usually be found on the floor at Bauers, dispensing advice on his favorite subject, the romance of food and wine.
Jason Gould
Sensei Jason Gould, Chief Instructor at Emerald Necklace Martial Arts in Boston, MA teaches his karate students self-confidence, strong character, and the value of community. And knowing how to throw a good punch doesn't hurt, either. Why do so many women train at his dojo? Why not take a class and find out?!
Dee Greenberg
Dee Greenberg has been practicing yoga for 37 years and is the owner of Om City Yoga of Cambridge, MA. (www.cambridgeyoga.net). Dee can be reached via email at yogaspiritboston@earthlink.net.
Mary Kaye Chryssicas
Mary Kaye Chryssicas is a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance and has worked with children and teens for the last 15 years teaching yoga and coaching sports. She is the author of three yoga books and a frequent speaker in schools on the power of positive thinking. She is mom to three amazing kids, one crazy dog and stands on her head daily.
Jill Sauro
Jill Sauro teaches yoga privately and at H.Y.P. studio in Needham. Outside the studio, she loves to hike, dance and play with her cat! She picked up writing when she began yoga and continues to journal almost daily.
Charlie Gifford
Charlie Gifford experienced his first sunburn at age three on the sandbar in front of his grandparent's house on Nantucket. As his UVA/B awareness has increased over the years, so has love for the island. Summers are spent sharing old traditions with his wife and three girls (who wear more sunscreen than their father) and developing new ones. His favorite summer pastimes hardly change from year to year: escaping the crowded streets, exploring sandbars at low tide, cooking out on the beach with friends… and dragging his exhausted wife to hear live music at The Box.
Naz Sioshansi
Naz Sioshansi is newly married and happy to be back in Boston after eight years working for a consulting firm in DC. Naz writes for the Boston Phoenix and other publications, and enjoys running local road races - once they are over. Most importantly, she is happy to have enough time to write again..
<"Marissa Miley">Marissa Miley
Marissa Miley lives in Manhattan, and is co-author of Restless Virgins: Love Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School. Her work has appeared in USA Today and The Huffington Post, and she has been featured on NBC¹s Today Show, NPR, Oprah Radio, Fox News, Star Jones, and other television and radio shows across the country. Marissa is currently working on a second book of nonfiction and, to stave off lethargic writing, training for her first marathon.
Robin Travers
Dr. Robin Travers is one of Boston’s top (and favorite) dermatologists. In practice at Skin Care Physicians in Chesnut Hill, she is also Assistant Professor of Medicine (Dermatology) at the Dartmouth University School of Medicine. She is the author of several papers and teaching articles about pregnancy-associated melanomas and computer-aided instruction in Dermatology. Her clinical interests include general medical dermatology, in-patient dermatology and women's dermatology.
Cheryl Clarkson
Cheryl Clarkson is the founder and President of SkinHealth in Wellesley Hills and on Newbury St. in Boston, MA. Cheryl holds a Masters degree from MIT, has been the CEO of several medical device companies, is a Trustee of the Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary, is a founding member of the Global Research Council of Children’s Hospital and the Cancer Leadership Council of Mass General Hospital. She has been featured on NBC news on skin care and skin cancer prevention, and recently as a skin care expert in Fortune Magazine.