Nancy Rommelmann writes for The Wall Street Journal, the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. She is the author of The Bad Mother, a novel, The Queens of Montague Street, a digital memoir of growing up in 1970s Brooklyn that was chosen as a Top 10 Longreads in 2012 and excerpted in The New York Times Magazine, and the story collection, Transportation. Destination Gacy, about her trip to interview serial killer John Wayne Gacy, was released as an ebook in 2014. She is currently at work on To the Bridge, the story of Amanda Stott-Smith, who threw her two young children from a bridge in Portland, Oregon. Her website is nancyrommelmann.com
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Aaron Scott recently started producing Oregon Public Broadcasting’s weekly arts and culture show, State of Wonder. Before joining OPB, he was a senior editor at Portland Monthly, orchestrating the magazine’s arts coverage and reporting narrative features. He has also filed award-winning stories for Out Magazine, Radiolab and This American Life. He has only told one story before a live audience, about his first relationship, which lasted a whole weekend in a D.C. hotel during a youth activism conference. Somehow, Ani DiFranco lyrics were involved.
This last featured blogger announcement for the Portland is pretty special to me, and really brings home how small the world can be when you’re a blogger and able to make connections through your website. I am beyond pleased to announce that this speaker is Ariel Meadow Stallings, the founder of the Offbeat Empire lifestyle sites.
I met Ariel back around 2001 when I moved to Seattle. We’d “met” through our blogs, and then met in person at a bloggers meetup. Back then, there weren’t very many people calling themselves bloggers, and it was easy to know the few dozen people doing so in your city. We became friends, and I have fond memories of hula hooping on the roof of her apartment building at sunset. She was a raver with multi-colored hair, editing a couple of zines and sites and writing reviews for Amazon.com to supplement her income. If you had asked either of us then what she would ‘grow up’ to be, it wouldn’t have been the head of a wedding industry business.
In the years that followed, she grew it into a business, added more sites to complement other areas of the Offbeat lifestyle, and developed it all into today’s Offbeat Empire. Now running a successful web content business with a small, dedicated staff, Ariel is also a mom (hello, Offbeat Families) and recently renovated her Seattle home (and hello Offbeat Home & Life). In short, my old raver friend has totally grown up into an amazing role model for anyone hoping to build a business starting with their blog.
Her session in Portland will be an interview/conversation rather than a presentation, and will really give you a chance to get to know her and how she accomplished what she has. If you would like to suggest questions for the interview, please leave them in the comments — note that we won’t answer them here, we’ll save it for the interview at the Portland event. In the meantime, here’s a little Q&A to get you started.
Q. What made you start blogging?
A. I was editing a rave magazine in 2000, and got an inquiry from a freelancer who linked his blog as his writing sample. I was immediately struck by the immediacy of self-publishing… I was sick of being beholden to the magazine model of printers and distribution, of having to wait months to hear feedback about the work I was producing. Thanks to the joy of ye olde Blogger.com, I was able to have my own blog within an hour of being introduced the the concept.
Q. You started as a personal blogger and now have your own Empire running on WordPress. What made you shift from a personal site to professional ones?
A. I came of age with the early wave of personal bloggers, and was totally focused on first-person writing. After a couple years, I started exploring more topical publications, first with Hooping.org in 2002 (dedicated to hula hooping) and then with offbeatbride.com in 2007. I shifted to WordPress when I launched offbeatbride.com, which was originally just to promote my wedding memoir that I was oh-so-excited about. Within a few months, it became clear that no one cared about my stupid memoir, but everyone loved the website.
Part of this shift to more topical writing was getting sick of talking about myself, but part of it was also in response to some pretty intense trolling that I dealt with for several years. While my desire to be a publisher never slowed, my patience with personal attacks got pretty thin. I made my personal blog members-only in 2009.
Offbeat Bride eventually grew to be a whole network of lifestyle sites (including offbeatfamilies.com and offbeathome.com), and while the writing is remains personal and first person, it’s most definitely NOT my personal story. I still write on my personal blog a couple times a week… while the readership is about 100 people vs 1 million people on my work blogs, it’s the best 100 people ever.
I wish more of my old-school blogging colleagues had members-only blogs. Personal blogging is still awesome.
Q. What kept you (and still keeps you) posting regularly?
A. First answer: Revenue. HA! Just kidding. (Sort of?)
Second answer: Chartbeat! I’m addicted to watching real-time reader counts after publishing something.
Third answer: New toys. I cannot lie! Nothing like a fresh WordPress update with new functions to fiddle with to keep me excited. I did a HUGE redesign of all my site templates last year, and the new format made writing on the same old site feel new.
Q. What’s your most popular post?
A.I got left at the altar: turning heartbreak into artwork
This post was carefully engineered to hit a sweet spot… Just negative enough to get the drama-hounds on Facebook sniffing the air and baying into the wind… but not so negative that it’s out of line with our mission — which is all about empowerment.
Ultimately, the story garnered huge mainstream media attention — the bride ended up on the Today Show — and even made waves internationally.
A. Over the years, I’ve got some truly amazing feedback about how my publications have made real, tangible differences in readers’ lives. Offbeat Bride isn’t curing cancer, but the site’s commitment to inclusivity and tolerance is downright revolutionary in the wedding industry, and knowing that we’ve changed people’s minds about trans* issues, or marriage equality, or how they communicate with the people around them… it’s hugely motivating.
I also love that as a publisher, I’ve been able to get my contributors noticed on a national level… in some ways, I consider myself as much a publicist as a publisher, and nothing makes me happier than when one of our stories blows up in the mainstream media. I love being the person who delivers offbeat culture to the mainstream’s consciousness.
Q. What are you hoping to share with the Press Publish audience?
A. A sense of wonder at the unexpected paths your career can take. I thought that getting a book deal was going to be my ticket out of web writing… and instead the blog supporting the book grew into a publishing company that now supports a staff of six. I found the wedding industry exhausting and stupid, and yet now here I am, not only a part of it, but actively working to improve it. Life is weird. Make plans, but enjoy the ride!
Q. Is there anything you’re hoping to learn at Press Publish?
A. I’m mostly stoked to talk to other people who spend as many hours a day living inside WordPress as I do!
It may be scary to be seen as an “expert” on something when you have others looking to you for advice. Particularly when your advice could be used to make life changing decisions regarding love, money, or health. But if you participate in your field, you’re honest with readers, strive to help them, and produce excellent content, you’ll find blogging to be a far more rewarding endeavor.
Once I realized people actually listened to what I had to say, or wrote, I was a bit surprised. Maybe even scared. Not only does it become your journey, but theirs as well because our advice becomes gospel at times. We are the defacto “pros” in an ever changing landscape of information. Readers have far more access to us now than the traditional journalism. The barriers are now down and we’re exposed for better or worse.
At first, I was a bit apprehensive of this position. Thoroughly researching every question that came to my inbox. Scouring the internet and books for the “right” answer. Being afraid of ever being wrong. But I soon realized it’s less about always being right and more about being honest and being there. Honest about what you do and do not know and being there when readers need you. This is the difference between us and traditional media.
Have any of you felt the pressure of being seen as an authority? Have you ever been disappointed by the lack of responsiveness from a blogger?
There were already a lot of great sessions and classes on the Portland schedule, but we’ve gone ahead and added some more! Those last TBDs are filled in, and we’re pretty psyched about how it’s all come together. Some of the new sessions:
An interview and Q&A with Ariel Stallings of Offbeat Empire on how she went from personal blogger to running a network of successful lifestyle sites.
$$$: Ads, Affiliates, and Stores. Because everyone wants to know their monetizing options, right?
Blogging 101 — Planning Ahead. A hands-on workshop to teach you how to set up an editorial calendar, schedule posts for publication, and keep a drafts folder for quick and easy posting when the well runs dry.
When I started my blog, I was amazed at how quick and easy the setup process was… except for one big thing.
The title.
I stared at the blank title box on the signup form for what felt like hours. The title is the first thing people see when they come to your blog, and very often it’s the thing that makes them decide whether or not they want to visit at all. How do you convey your personality and point of view in one catchy, easy-to-remember moniker?
No pressure.
So I picked something I thought was clever. I called my gay dad blog, “Where Do Gaybies Come From?” I spent months writing provocative posts, promoting myself and building a following. And then I decided I couldn’t stand my title.
“Gaybies” is such a confusing and off-putting word, to so many people both gay and straight. It wasn’t clear to some readers who was gay — me or the kids. And the whole thing was so long and unwieldy. It was useless as a Twitter handle or hashtag, because it took up too many characters.
So I did the hardest thing I’ve done with my blog. I changed the title.
I liked my new title, “Mommy Man,” because it not only expressed my theme in two words, but it leant itself to a fun superhero graphic that would give my blog more of an identity. I was worried I’d lose readers, that I’d have to build up a whole new following or that people wouldn’t “get” the new title. Thankfully, the risk paid off. I put up a post announcing the change, then got back to writing exactly the same blog I always had, and my follower count continued to grow.
There’s still some confusion and a bit of controversy at times. Some people wonder if I’m selling gay dads short by suggesting we’re just mom wannabes… or on the flip side that I’m belittling what moms do by turning them into cartoons. Overall, though, most people who enjoy my blog get what I’m going for with the title, and the questions people occasionally ask add to the discussion I want my blog to promote.
So I’m sticking with Mommy Man… for now, at least.
I’d love to hear other people’s stories. How did you choose your blog title? Have you ever regretted it or changed it?
It wouldn’t be a blogging conference without at least one food blogger, right? Portland local Kelly Bejelly is the force behind the popular Paleo blog A Girl Worth Saving. Her site is filled with recipes, gorgeous food photos, and general cooking and baking tips, like how to make ingredient substitutions or how to freeze peaches. Her work includes vegan and allergy recipes as well, to make them accessible to the greatest number of people.
A sample of her photos:
Now I’m hungry. Must have chocolate! Er, cacao. 🙂
Like many, Kelly started blogging as a hobby, but over time has not only turned her blog into a business, but has branched out into other sites, like meal-planning resource 20 Dishes. Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Huffington Post, Redbook, Parade, and Natural Solutions Magazine. On top of all that, she recently completed a cookbook,Paleo Eats: 111 Comforting Gluten-Free, Grain-Free and Dairy-Free Recipes for the Foodie in You, that’s available now.
One of the things that Kelly does really well is tying her blog into social media. She has a strong presence on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, produces a regular newletter, a podcast and the occasional webinar, and even has a store on her site for recommended products. She’s going to be talking at Press Publish Portland about how to turn your blog into a business, sharing what has worked (or not) for her in her path to (successfully) monetizing her blog.
Q. What made you start blogging on (your main blog)?
A. This is highly embarrassing, but true. I was new mom in search of helpful information about how to wrangle my newborn, so I turned to mom blogs to figure out if the lack of the sleep was normal. I noticed that most mom bloggers work with brands by reviewing products. I quickly became a giveaway junkie. One day a light bulb went off, and I realized that I could do this too. At that point, my blog was born again.
Q. What kept you (and still keeps you) posting regularly?
A. A Girl Worth Saving transitioned from “Mommy-life” to a food blog that shares about my grain-free/paleo lifestyle years ago. I’ve found that knowing that my recipes are helping others in their lifestyle (especially the kids) keeps me creative in the kitchen and leads to regular posts.
Q. Is that also your favorite post? If not, what are a few of your favorite posts, and why?
A. No, while I adore my slow cooker, my favorite post is my recipe for a Raspberry Pop Tart. I was really trying to push the idea of “Paleo” and do so in a way that everyone with allergies could enjoy. The recipe is nut-free, egg-free and dairy-free, but it’s tasty and a well-loved recipe.
Q. How have readers responded to your writing?
A. In my line of work, it’s the recipe, not the writing. I get praised on how easy and quick, as well as delicious, my recipes are. Is there anything you’re hoping to share with the Press Publish audience? I hope to share my journey as a blogger and the tips and tricks I have learned along the way.
Q. Is there anything you’re hoping to learn at Press Publish?
A. I’m always on the lookout for the newest trends and how to better serve the paleo community.
Mary Laura Philpott has definitely not written every *single* word in the English language. Probably she hasn’t even written 80% of them — there are loads of words out there that just aren’t used that often — like “smaragd” and “stibnite” — so including them in your article isn’t necessarily a good idea (unless you’re writing about minerals).
That said, Mary Laura has written a lot of words in a lot of different combinations, sizes, and flavors. Articles, essays, book reviews, advertising copy, style guides, interviews, columns, blog posts, listicles, poems… she is prolific, and her publishing experience is robust. Also, she draws penguins in a very endearing way.
Mary Laura is the editor and producer of MUSING — the online literary magazine from Parnassus Books, the legendary independent bookshop in Nashville, TN. She’s also the co-author of Poetic Justice: Legal Humor in Verse, so it’s pretty clear she can see the humor in just about anything.
Lots of people get to enjoy Mary Laura’s sense of humor on her blog I Miss You When I Blink, which features her “on deadline, off topic” writing, including tips for ladypersons, interpretations of fashion ads, and our friends the Random Penguins, who have a book coming out. (A book about them. Not by them, by Mary Laura. To the best of my knowledge, penguins can’t write.)
So, that blog of hers? Well, it wasn’t always possible to connect Mary Laura Philpott, author and editor extraordinaire, with I Miss You When I Blink, because she started that blog anonymously as a side project. Do you want to hear the really interesting story of how she went from anonymous blog to many-professional-opportunities-plus-book-deal? Lucky for you, she’s agreed to tell you all about it at Press Publish Portand on March 28!
In the meantime, here’s your chance to get to know Mary Laura a little better by reading an interview:
A. I started I Miss You When I Blink in 2012, right after finishing up a big project that had eaten my life for two years. I found myself with a bunch of time on my hands all of a sudden, and I didn’t want to immediately hand that time right over to another work project or volunteer endeavor. So really, I guess I started blogging as kind of a placeholder. It was a fun little side project that I thought might keep me occupied until I decided what I wanted my next big thing to be. Blogging wasn’t much of a stretch at the time — it was fun and easy. Writing is what I do naturally (and what I do for a living), and I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh, so a humor blog just made sense.
Q. What kept you (and still keeps you) posting regularly?
A. I Miss You When I Blink is a space for the things I create that don’t have a place anywhere else. That’s not to say it’s a place for my writing that’s not good enough to be somewhere else, or that I’m not editing and composing what I put there — I am — but it’s a good spot for more casual, more silly, sometimes more bizarre writing and illustration. Some days, I’ll work for a few hours on a professional project and then do another little bit of work on something else, and then I’ll work on something kooky for the blog and think, “Now this one’s just for me.”
If I were a painter instead of a writer, I guess it would be like coming home at the end of the day after painting a bunch of portraits and landscapes and doing a finger painting of a monster with five eyeballs. It’s fun to let loose a little bit. And because this site is entirely my own creation, I decide what goes in. Maybe one week, I write about something I read in a magazine, and another week, I post pictures of Champagne corks that I’ve dressed in tiny outfits.
Having a blog also takes the place of those really long email threads that used to go around, where you send something funny to a friend, and then they respond and forward it to more friends, and then before you know it, you have 100 emails in your inbox with “Fwd: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re:” as the subject line. With a blog, it’s all in one place, and it’s much easier to share and comment.
Q. What’s your most popular post? Is that also your favorite post? If not, what are a few of your favorite posts, and why?
A. The most popular posts on I Miss You When I Blink are the ones about fashion ads. I actually love fashion — I can get lost in an issue of Vogue for hours, and I love to dress up — so it’s not really that I’m saying, “Boooo on this industry.” I just love to take a moment and look at those ads literally, to imagine what they’d be telling us if they were part of an actual how-to guide for life. When you look at them that way, they’re just so hysterically bizarre. The most recent post on that theme, “How to Be a Ladyperson at the Holidays,” went a bit viral. I think it was shared on Facebook almost 100,000 times? The posts along those lines — or like this one, where I studied the J. Crew aesthetic — are among my own favorites, too.
Some of my other favorite posts resonate with smaller groups of readers, but are just as rewarding for me. As a lifelong reader and writer, I’ve always loved talking about books. I used to post little book reports on the blog about what I’d read lately, and those didn’t exactly go viral, but they did spark some really fun, nerdy conversation when they were shared. And eventually, those led me to start writing for outlets like the Barnes & Noble Book Blog and Book Riot, which then led me to what I’m doing now, which is editing and producing Musing, an online literary magazine for the indie bookstore Parnassus Books (which, of course, we built with WordPress.com). So in a way, those less popular posts are my favorites, because they helped me make a shift in my professional writing life that has been really fun and rewarding.
I very rarely write about my family, because my spouse is a much more private person than I am, and I also want to respect my kids’ privacy and let them tell their own stories whenever and however they’re ready. (Also, I just feel like there are so many people doing such a nice job writing about parenting already that I can’t see that there’s much for me to add on that topic.) But occasionally, I will post something family related. This was a favorite of mine, based on a weird experience we had in an elevator.
A. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how positive all the feedback is. I really love to make people laugh; so when someone comments that a post made them laugh or is the funniest thing they’ve seen all week, that’s music to my ears. I’m sure there are people who’d think the stuff I post on my blog is ridiculous, but I guess they aren’t looking. Or they aren’t commenting, in which case I appreciate their restraint.
There was a reader once who wrote, simply, “This is stupid.” That’s all. It was tucked in among a bunch of positive comments from other people, and it was so understated and simple, I just loved it. Now at the bookstore where I work, whenever someone does something that everyone’s fawning over and calling brilliant, one of my coworkers will deadpan, “This is stupid,” and it makes us chuckle. Not everything is going to please everyone. Frankly, I’m surprised whenever anyone I don’t know even notices that this blog exists.
Q. Is there anything you’re hoping to share with the Press Publish audience? Is there anything you’re hoping to learn at Press Publish?
A. Well, I’m happy to share any experiences I’ve had, to the extent that they might be helpful, or at least entertaining. I’m also looking forward to seeing what other people are doing. There’s some great undiscovered talent out there. It’s so fun, when you’re just wading through the muck online, to stumble upon something brilliant or hilarious. And oh yes, there’s plenty I’d like to learn. I manage a few different WordPress sites, and I’m sure there are lots of things I’m doing wrong, plus cool features I have no clue about. I’m bringing a list of questions for the Happiness Engineers. Thanks for having me!
Want to see Mary Laura speak at Press Publish Portland on March 28? Get your ticket!
The one thing that I’ve learned in my career as a food blogger is that the perfect image isn’t everything. I know. This is a shock to me also since I worked my tail off turning my photos from something that looked like my Aunt Flores took with her early 90s cell phone without her glasses into something that could grace the cover of a say, cookbook.
In my never-ending Facebook and Instgram feed of lunch after lunch, I’ve seen that excitement over a recipe can be driven by the right light on a goppy piece of ketchup even though everything else is blah. Even a photo where it looks exactly like it would look right on your counter can be so much more popular with your readers than the one where you styled everything perfectly and the dish is looking straight like “sizzle.”
It’s easy to forget in the quest for food photo perfection that food is comfort and when you can convey that in an image it will reach your audience in ways that the you would never guess.
Which type of food photo are you drawn to? Have you noticed the same thing with photos shared on your site?
In the weeks after my blog first went viral, I had no idea what to do next. It’s a strange sensation — looking at your blog’s statistics, seeing the traffic climb higher and higher, and wondering what to do about all of it. I googled phrases like “Tips for a Successful Blog,” and took careful notes, ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. So much of the advice out there is common-sense, and one of the biggest “golden rules” seems to be: narrow down the focus of your blog. Keep your blog clear, direct, and specific.
It’s great advice. And continues to be great advice. Only problem is: I completely ignored it.
The most popular post I have ever written, by far, was a semi-drunken rant in which I used the f-bomb fourteen times and encourage everyone to fart more. It’s pretty funny, and I’m proud of it.
My second-most-popular post was about racism in America and the events in Ferguson, Missouri. It’s not at all funny, and it grapples with extremely challenging and deeply sensitive issues. I am also pretty proud of it.
In between, I’ve blogged about anything from fashion and boyfriends to social justice issues and depression. I’ve experimented with format — some posts are almost entirely pictures and images, while others are lengthy three-thousand-word affairs. It makes my blog difficult to categorize — am I a humor blogger? A feminist advocate? A graphic designer? A satirist? A memoirist?
To be honest, I think in some ways I am all of those things, and I’m so grateful that my blog can be a platform for my voice, no matter what forms that takes on any given day. Maybe it’s just that I was a really straight-laced, rule-oriented kid and this is my adult act of rebellion, but sometimes … I think rules are made to be broken.
Weigh in! Have you ever ignored or broken a rule about blogging?
To say Christine is a veteran blogger is an understatement. She’s had a website since 1993, and has been blogging since before WordPress — heck, since before the term “blog” was coined! With more than 20 years of online writing under her belt, Christine says, “Blogging kept me writing.”
Christine’s experience of interacting with the community built online is unique. In 2006, she started a blog under a pseudonym. A few months later, at the age of 33, she suffered a stroke. She didn’t recognize her symptoms as a stroke, but she knew something was off. A few days later, she wrote:
something in my brain burped. most of what i want to do is just out of my grasp. i feel like i know how to do them, but then when i go to do them, i just…CAN’T. day by day, i’m regaining my abilities, so i hope this is just temporary.
Her readers urged her to seek medical attention, in comments on the post as well as — for the few readers who knew her personally — in emails. A day later, she commented from her hospital bed:
I had a stroke! Will be better.
She continued to blog at jadepark.wordpress.com through her stroke recovery, for the next two years. Throughout her blogging, she maintained that close relationship with her commenters.
When I was going through stroke recovery, I felt incredibly alone. Each stroke is unique, so that just furthers the isolation. And while recovering, I basically sat shiva for the person I lost, unready to face the person I’d become. So if this piece eases that solitary for others, I’m so happy.
Christine recently signed a deal with Ecco Press, an imprint of Harper Collins, to publish two books: WHOLE, based on her BuzzFeed essay, chronicling the debilitating stroke she suffered at the age of 33 and her subsequent transformation; and THE GOLEM OF SEOUL, which follows two Korean immigrants in 1970s New York City in search of a lost relative who take a cue from Jewish mythology and make a golem from Korean soil. We’re so happy for her!
Get to know Christine a little bit better by reading the traditional Speaker Spotlight interview:
photograph by Kristyn Stroble
Q. What made you start blogging at jadepark.wordpress.com?
A. While my current main WordPress blog is part of my author website, and relatively new, and I had a blog before that at czilka.wordpress.com, I’ll define my main blog as jadepark.wordpress.com, where I blogged anonymously in the wake of my stroke. I started blogging at “Writing Under a Pseudonym” as a place where I could write without judgment, without high stakes, and where I could chronicle my recovery. I didn’t have an agenda other than it be a semi-private space where I could be honest and frank and speak my mind in the wake of trauma.
Q. What kept you (and still keeps you) posting regularly?
A. Engagement with my readership. The writing. There’s twitter, but I’ve always blogged, because it’s the blog where I feel I have more liberty. Also, my blog is key to refining my voice as a writer, especially with my nonfiction.
Q. What’s your most popular post? Is that also your favorite post? If not, what are a few of your favorite posts, and why?
A. When I first had my stroke, I put up a blog post. It was an aphasia-ridden nonsensical post, and it was a very short post. It has since become my most popular post—and in a sense, it is also my favorite. In so many ways, it is genuine, because I lost the ability to organize thoughts and filter information.
Q. How have readers responded to your writing?
A. The response to my writing has been phenomenal. I have made lifelong friends from my blog once I came out from behind the curtain—and it has driven so much support for my narrative.
Q. Is there anything you’re hoping to share with the Press Publish audience? Is there anything you’re hoping to learn at Press Publish?
A. Well–! I’ve got a literary agent now, and I’m writing a memoir about my stroke. Jade Park; Writing Under a Pseudonym has been an invaluable resource as I write my book, because my memory was very affected in the wake of the stroke. That I wrote everything down has been helpful in recovering facts. At Press Publish, I just hope to connect with others, and promote blogging.
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Nathaniel Friedman (“Bethlehem Shoals”) is a writer living in Portland. He’s a founder of FreeDarko.com, the co-author of The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac and The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History, and a regular contributor to GQ.com.
Meaghan O’Connell (author, “A Birth Story”) is a freelance writer and a columnist for New York Magazine’s The Cut. She just moved to Portland from Brooklyn, New York, and is working on a book of essays about new motherhood.
Nancy Rommelmann writes for The Wall Street Journal, the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. She is the author of The Bad Mother, a novel, The Queens of Montague Street, a digital memoir of growing up in 1970s Brooklyn that was chosen as a Top 10 Longreads in 2012 and excerpted in The New York Times Magazine, and the story collection, Transportation. Destination Gacy, about her trip to interview serial killer John Wayne Gacy, was released as an ebook in 2014. She is currently at work on To the Bridge, the story of Amanda Stott-Smith, who threw her two young children from a bridge in Portland, Oregon. Her website is nancyrommelmann.com
Aaron Scott recently started producing Oregon Public Broadcasting’s weekly arts and culture show, State of Wonder. Before joining OPB, he was a senior editor at Portland Monthly, orchestrating the magazine’s arts coverage and reporting narrative features. He has also filed award-winning stories for Out Magazine, Radiolab and This American Life. He has only told one story before a live audience, about his first relationship, which lasted a whole weekend in a D.C. hotel during a youth activism conference. Somehow, Ani DiFranco lyrics were involved.
It wouldn’t be a blogging conference without at least one food blogger, right? Portland local Kelly Bejelly is the force behind the popular Paleo blog 
Press Publish 
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