I have worked for Patch as a local editor since September 2010, when I launched the Northbrook Patch site. I ran that site until taking over as editor in Evanston in May 2012. 
I've been involved with the news business since age 12, when my first job was "stuffing" papers (folding the arts section into the news section, which came separately) for a local newsstand in my hometown. Within a year, I was promoted to selling them on the street, where my biggest sales day coincided with Bill Clinton's impeachment. I attended college at the University of Chicago, where I majored in English and wrote for the school newspaper, The Maroon. I went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.  While in New York, I covered community news for the weekly Our Town, in addition to writing for the alternative weekly New York Press. Following graduation, I spent two years in St. Louis, working full-time as associate editor for the weekly newspaper Ladue News while freelancing for the West End Word.