Editor-In-Chief
Since fleeing Los Angeles and the shallow world of the television industry to help make high-minded social documentaries in D.C., Sommer finds herself occasionally sneaking an Us Weekly into her shopping cart at the Giant in Shaw. Feel free to shame her the next time you see her. Covert grocery store behavior aside, Sommer thinks D.C. is the perfect city for her, and doesn't miss the West Coast much at all (except for the weather). Before she started blogging and documenting, Sommer was a barista, a valet, a writer and editor, a transcriber of romance novels, a house sitter, and a prop department coordinator. She also enjoys wearing sweaters, drinking bourbon, and falling asleep with the TV on.
Managing and Arts Editor
Heather made her way to the nation’s capital in 2002 from southern California, after a short stint in the Midwest where she attended college and worked in politics. She recently graduated from law school, but is seriously thinking about becoming an anarchist in protest of the experience. Her day job, however, pays for metro fare to art galleries and the photography supplies she’ll need to up and leave the law forever one day. Heather regularly feeds her inner-geek with made-for-TV disaster movies and books about special relativity. Unfortunately, she recently discovered the evils of TiVo and is now doomed to spend the rest of existence catching up on programming she doesn’t even like, just because she can.
Senior Editors
Martin came to the District by way of Switzerland, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and the thriving mecca of State College, Pa. In between blogging, selling bikes, and playing ultimate frisbee, he works the role of jack-of-all-trades at an embassy in D.C. (though he doesn't benefit from the high-roller diplomat lifestyle). He rides his bike almost everywhere, including on every street and avenue in the city named after a state. He lives on the eastern end of Capitol Hill.
Kyle Gustafson moved to D.C. in the summer of 2004 after seven years in New York City. He spent his time in the shadow of the Evil Empire slaving away in the music industry, working on projects with artists like R.E.M., Beck, William Orbit and Beth Orton as well as movies like Fight Club and School of Rock. Tired of being paid in CD's and concert tickets, he decided he needed a change and eventually ended up in D.C. He now works in e-media and has no regrets about giving up his rock and roll lifestyle. He served as co-sports editor of Gothamist in early 2004 before becoming a founding member of DCist later in the year. Born in Massachusettes (Go Sox!), he grew up in North Carolina and calls the Cackalack his home, NASCAR be damned. He graduated from East Carolina many moons ago, where he was a club DJ as well as music director of the campus radio station. He spends most of his spare time updating his own blog and uploading concert photos and pictures of his cat to his Flickr account.
Ian spent his wasted youth in "the other D.C." (Dale City, VA), and after his first horrific taste of beltway traffic at the age of 17, vowed to never live in the 'burbs again if he ever returned to the area after college. Four years of higher education deep in Amish country later, he did return, and has called the District home for a decade now. Much to his own surprise, he now finds himself working in I.T., despite all his best efforts to claim that he is, at heart, an artsy luddite. He also used to be in a band you've probably never heard of, harbors a deep love for smoky dive bars with cheap beer and loud music, and used up the entirety of his 15 minutes of fame on a failed Jeopardy! appearance.
Music
Amanda grew up at the end of the Orange Line and spent four years in Charlottesville earning a degree in English from UVA before settling back in the D.C. area. Ad woman by day, concert rat by night, she has a singular talent for spending all her money on trendy necklaces and iTunes, finding the deeper philosophical meanings behind Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The O.C., and tenuously straddling the line between the hip and the nerdy.
Chris, originally from Maine, moved in 2000 from the land of moose and lobsters to the Hilltop of bulldogs and popped collars known as Georgetown University. Since graduation, he’s both tested the waters of the Federal Government, and developed a more intimate relationship with the District and its local politics while working in the Mayor’s Office before eventually landing in a not-for-profit. Stress reducing activities include writing, working out, strumming away at his guitar, and nourishing his insatiable appetite for zombie flicks.
Matt, a Southern California native, moved to the district in 2004 in order to experience the East Coast and take advantage of decent public transportation. While he still holds Los Angeles near and dear to his heart, he keeps his schedule busy with his day job as a web content producer and many extracurricular activities, such as playing guitar, writing, going to shows, reading plenty of Cormac McCarthy and watching quality horror flicks.
Graham comes to D.C. from his beloved Bluegrass region of Central Kentucky. After playing soccer and expanding the easily-expandable world of American Studies at Carleton College in Minnesota, he moved to the District last year in search of gainful employment. He found it. The son of two DC-area ex-pats, Graham has an untold number of grandfolks, aunts, uncles, and cousins in the area, and lives and dies by the fortunes of his beloved Redskins. A big music fan, he's sworn off listening to it on the radio and sticks to sports talk. Graham also founded the ill-fated Power Pop Preservation Society, plays bocce, frequents the Afghan Restaurant on Route 1 in Alexandria, and almost exclusively shops at Trader Joe's.
A native of D.C.'s Maryland suburbs, Sriram spends his days as a beleaguered federal employee but would not-so-secretly rather be playing drums as a career. As a result, he spends far too much of his disposable income on CDs (yes, he still buys CDs) and concert tickets. He keeps the dream alive by playing out in his spare time and has performed at The Millennium Stage, Blues Alley, Twins, Bohemian Caverns, the East Coast Jazz Festival, the 8x10, and the Black Cat. Sriram is proud to join the DCist staff where he will spend his time writing mainly about D.C.'s visual arts and jazz scenes.
Jacarl was born and raised in Houghton, an old copper mining town off Lake Superior’s south shore in Michigan’s rustic Upper Peninsula. It was there he developed his appreciation for pasties, a local delicacy, and hip-hop (go figure). Upon arriving in Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan for undergraduate studies, he began writing as a means to spread his notion of “good” hip-hop to the masses (the creed of any devout backpacker). He moved to the District in 2005 to become a local government bureaucrat after picking up two Michigan graduate degrees (they keep him warm at night). When he’s not working to get citizens more bang for their buck, he’s trying to match beats between ‘80s electro-boogie records on his 1200s.
Valerie originally hails from Virginia Beach, VA and after graduating from Wake Forest University in 2006 with a degree in running-the-college-radio-station and a minor in sleep deprivation, decided that she was tired of driving for 90 minutes to see a decent concert. So she moved to Atlanta, interned for Paste Magazine for the first half of the year and then in June of 2007 moved up to DC. She joined the staff of the DCist in the hopes of both fulfilling her need to write compulsively and finding other people in the area who dig music and late-night road trips.
A veteran of many a cold winter, Mehan was born in Montreal and reared in Southeastern Wisconsin. After four years spent earning a degree in Japanese literature at the University of Chicago, he spent a year living in Japan before finally landing in the D.C. area. A technology columnist by day, Mehan spends his nights listening to, watching, photographing and writing about music. You can visit his personal web site here.
Sports
Matt Bourque left the sandy shores of Cape Cod for the marble halls of D.C. A PoliSci degree later, Matt spends his days on K Street making some wicked awesome labels. Though he claims to be a sports moralist, he is betrayed by an affliction of sports bigamy. He can and will tell you the perfect spot to stand in any given metro station. He is still bitter about his disqualification from the 2005 Rock Paper Scissors National Championship. His mp3 player looks like a walkman (vintage 1983), but it's still his baby; and baby, daddy loves you.
Jason was born here in the District of Columbia to two DC-native parents who withheld meals until he was able to explain the grid system of Washington's streets. From there, he briefly sojourned throughout central Virginia, picking up degrees from both UVA and VCU. Outside of DCist, he is a professional actor, itinerate voice teacher, who has this year been tapped by Rorschach Theatre to become a Resident Company Member. He is very happy to be a part of DCist's family
Eli Resnick is from the anonymous suburbs. He went to school in the anonymous suburbs, and he still lives in the suburbs to this very day. When he travels in the North, the Midwest or internationally, he claims he's from D.C. The one time he got out of his car in Texas, at a gas station near Amarillo, on the way to California, on tour with Second String and the B Team, he said he was from Virginia. Eli has driven as far as Lowell, Massachussetts to watch minor league hockey, and once set a Reston house league record for penalty minutes. He has discussed music, politics and poetry with E. Ethelbert Miller; dogs, families and poetry with Peter Klappert and warm jackets and liquor with John Ashbery. Among his recent experiences as a temp, he helped a lobbying group that advocates marijuana legalization, a company that makes lists of other companies and a credit union. He currently takes boxes off trucks underneath a stripmall and volunteers at a homeless shelter.
Food
A true Baltimoron, Jamie grew up cracking Baltimore blue crabs with her teeth and sprinkling Old Bay on popcorn and fries. She was raised on thousand year-old duck eggs, her dad's home-cured and roasted meats, and exploring nearly every Chinese restaurant in the DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas. She also recalls a time when her mother and sister held her down while the other shoved her food in her mouth because she refused to eat. That's no longer a problem. Jamie spends her time running to eat, harassing Duke fans, cheering on Arsenal at Lucky Bar, exploring the fine arts scene, and writing for her own blog, synaesthesia.
Eric grew up in the suburbs of Austin and came to DC in 2000 to get a Computer Science education at GW. A byproduct of this plan was that he also got an education in good beer by working at the Brickskeller, and now he has a software job during the day, a bar job a couple nights a week (Rustico, in Alexandria), and an unhealthy obsession with brewing beer, making charcuterie, and learning to play the mandolin in his spare time.
Following a tour of duty in the Midwest that lasted her entire young life, Gayle caught a serious case of Potomac Fever many moons ago while interning with a Cable News Network which shall remain nameless. By day, she is a defense reporter trying to make sense of the Air Force budget, but by night she enjoys dining out in fabulous establishments and divey joints alike, talking about Congress and getting her Lindy Hop on. She is more outdoorsy than she looks and can make quiche on an open fire. If you know where to get good gelato in this town, please email her immediately.
Andy was born and raised in Bell Labs-built suburb of Holmdel, NJ where he was brought up on the xenophobic principle that you'll never know the taste of good pizza or bagels. He also spent most nights helping Mom in the kitchen, starting with curly-dogs and beans in the microwave and progressing to penne with sausage from a Ziggy-themed cookbook. College brought him to the Deep South (well, Atlanta), where his Food TV viewing was briefly interrupted by studying and video games. Alton Brown once advised his broke ass to eat flank steak and eggs, advice that Andy took to heart before giving up the cow (and other land-roving animals) for a 2-year span. Andy now lives in D.C.'s Northern Virginia suburbs, where he works in the intellectual property industry, worries about your taste in beer and your adoration of the Olive Garden, and harbors delusions of one day being a rock star.
Public Affairs
Andrew was born on Andrews Air Force Base, though his parents say they didn't name him after it. Being a military brat, he moved around a lot, finishing high school in Tennessee. Andrew's been in DC for 8 years, graduating from GW in 2002, and makes maps for a living. He has yet to find any pirate treasure, but is still happy he can bike to work. He has lived in various basement apartments since graduation and hopes to some day live on the Earth's surface. In the meantime, he likes beer and writes a blog about GW basketball.
Fredo (short for Alfredo) was born and raised in the Bronx, NY, but descended upon the D.C. area when he started high school in 1992. During those teenage years, he developed a taste for writing, acting, and banging on a drum in a kilt. He continued the writing and drumming parts (sans kilt) at Fordham University in the Bronx, but returned to the Beltway within two years. Since then, he's held a few occupations including pinball machine repairman, human resources gopher, and mail room dude. Currently, Fredo pushes pixels full time for a gay non-profit's web site, and works part time for some geeky fruit company based in California. When not in front of a computer, he's taking photos, playing board or video games, acting, or collecting fun desk tchotchkes. Fredo shares a Capitol Hill rowhouse with three housemates and is the proud adoptive poppa of a cranky kitty.
Aaron ended up settling in DC after earning his degree at the University of Pittsburgh in creative nonfiction. But after writing essays about getting lost in Ikea and the fanciful world of professional wrestling pay-per-views, he wanted to settle down and figured, hey, why not here? (Read: was broke, had no prospects, and counted on getting an easy job in non-profits. Mission accomplished.) Things to note: a) he eats his PB&J with three slices, covered thickly on all sides, and cut diagonally; b) additionally, he has a shower routine - rinse, soap, shampoo, repeat if needed; c) and he wakes up at 7:30 am on weekends to watch British football (Gooner 'till he dies). A fan of Jonathan Lethem, Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, and briskly walking down - but not up - the escalator, feel free to berate him on his month-long droughts between personal blog posts.
Arts
Classical music contributor and Midwestern expatriate Charles Downey grew up in the Great State of Michigan but has lived in Washington since 1991, except for a year doing research for his doctoral dissertation in Paris. Although he briefly tried living in Maryland and Northern Virginia, there is only one neighborhood for him, and that's Capitol Hill, where he lives with his wife and two children. He teaches music and art history at a tony private school, is a professional choral singer, plays the piano and organ when he gets the chance, and keeps his blogging finger on the pulse of the classical music world at Ionarts.
Missy Frederick's thrilled to be writing about theater again after interviewing "Rocky Horror Show" cast members such as Jerry Springer for the now-defunct Broadway Online and dodging crank calls from angry actors in Fordham University's production of "A Chorus Line". A journalist by day, Missy's covered everything from education and Congress to satellites and NASA; she's now a business reporter for The Washington Examiner. The Cleveland native's other passions include food, fencing, James Bond and Aaron Sorkin; a board game aficionado with a serious competitive streak, she'll challenge any of you to a round of Scrabble, Encore or Taboo: name the time and place.
Amy came to D.C. in 2006 after living in Western Massachusetts for 22 years, and finds the District a welcome change of scenery. She's in the final months of her Master's degree program English Literature at the University of Maryland and writes about the arts for a D.C. newspaper. In her free time, Amy likes watching Boston sports, finding perfect Indian food in the city, and holding Arrested Development marathons.
Born in Topeka, Kansas but taught to fear Jesus in the mighty Northern Virginia suburbs, Chris quit the East Coast after college for an extended stay in the placid surfer's paradise of Ventura, CA, where he wrote for an alternative weekly and took up boxing. After earning a screenwriting degree from UCLA, he worked for a magician for a while, but was eventually seduced back east by the District's pedestrian-accessible charms. Chris writes about pop music for the Washington Post, teaches a little boxing, and idolizes Orson Welles. Loves: running, comic books, thunderstorms, microbrews, old time radio drama. Hates: treadmills, reality TV, techno music, PDAs.
After a few hops around the country in her younger years, Lynne Venart settled in the Philadelphia suburbs at age 12 and later attended Penn State University, where she earned a bachelors in Art and Advertising. A graphic designer and studio artist, she moved to D.C. in 2000 for a job at a young and fledgling web firm, where she was promptly laid off in the dot com crash months later. Free from the ties of a 9-to-5, Lynne has been freelancing ever since. Her workaholic alter ego is relentlessly obsessed with school, filling her time with a year of post-grad study in painting and a soon-to-be-completed Masters in Arts Management at GMU. In her spare time, she’s always up for a game of Ms. Pac Man and loves a good brown ale.
Another person from away, Kelly felt the need to move to the District to infiltrate the world of non-profits and to give up her vote in Congress. An environmentalist by day, and super hero by night, Kelly spends her free time by pursuing crafty endeavors and volunteering for numerous causes. To get some use out of her degree in fine arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Kelly covers the visual arts for DCist.
Born and raised in Indiana, Shawn Westfall obtained both undergraduate and graduate degrees in English literature, which -- let's face it -- is just asking for trouble. He could bore you to tears on any number of topics, including his four years in the U.S. Air Force, the time he starred in a Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen video, and the often misunderstood literary persona of Kingsley Amis. Get enough beer in him and he'll do an imitation of a scratchy LP recording of T.S. Eliot reciting "The Waste Land", complete with pops and skips. When not writing for DCist, he works in the marketing department of a DC-focused lecture agency, and teaches a series of classes in improvisational comedy at the DC Improv. He lives in Columbia Heights, and he's usually one of the oldest dudes haunting the Wonderland Ballroom; if not the oldest, then clearly the lamest. Shawn doesn't recommend his busy, overscheduled life to anyone.
Ben hails from the North Side of Chicago and decided he liked D.C. when he realized the Smithsonians cost free-ninety-nine. Currently studying at GW, he has spent three years doing research on Eleanor Roosevelt while trying as hard as possible to hide the fact that he's just an undergrad. Ben saw Arsenal beat Chelsea at Highbury in 2001 and dares you to ask him the starting lineup from any Arsenal game since then. Despite passions for turntablism, nightly monument jogging, and making eggs, Ben spends a lot time worrying about what will happen if he marries someone else with a hyphenated last name...
Born in Rochester, New York, Eric moved to the District in 2003 via Summit County Colorado, College Park, MD and Atlanta GA. In 2004, he finally finished up his degree as an English Literature Major, 13 years after he started it. Growing up in Rochester he was exposed to cameras at en early age and began taking photographs with a Kodak Instamatic 104. After many jobs, including: snowboard edge bender, videographer, and Mr. Pizza Guy, Eric works as a web designer by day and a photographer by night. Photography, skateboarding, BMX, paper art, screen printing, collecting dunny, and shooting roller derby take up much of his free time.
Technology Director
Tom was born and raised in Arlington, picked up a degree from UVA, mooched off his girlfriend for a while in Italy, and now lives in D.C. Along the way he's been nerding it up consistently and thoroughly. He blogs, knows every acronym of three letters or less, and fears natural light.
Published by Gothamist
Executive Editor and co-founder: Jen Chung
Publisher and co-founder Jake Dobkin
Technology director Neil Epstein