Before I ever wanted to review music for a living, I wanted to be a travel writer. Six months out of college and fresh from a two-month trip to Africa, I published my first cover story of any sort for a magazine called Big World. Soon after, an essay I wrote on my time in Tanzania appeared in a travel journal right next to one from Annie Dillard, whose book I’d been reading on the trip. I eventually gave up freelancing and took a job as the communications director for a non-profit doing medical work throughout the world. Before launching Paste at 30, I’d had a chance to cover stories on six continents.
So it feels so very right today to announce the addition of Paste Travel, along with four other new sections to our website—Food, Comics, Style and College. Our first issue of Paste in 2002 was only 64 pages long, but we still devoted four of those pages to a guide to New York that included our favorite little craft beer store in the Village and a French Caribbean restaurant on the Upper West Side. Travel intersects just about every other topic we already cover and has always been in our DNA.
Our new travel editor is Alex Crevar from Athens, Ga. He was the travel editor for Southern Living and a regular contributor to The New York Times. He’s also written for Budget Travel, Coastal Living, Forbes, Gourmet, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Travel & Leisure and the Washington Post. Our assistant travel editor is former Men’s Fitness and Rand McNally staffer Maggie Parker, who wrote about her recent visit to Soweto 10 years after Apartheid. And Charles McNair, Hollis Gillespie and David Jenison are among our regular Paste Travel writers.
Food is also a passion of mine, as anyone who’s seen me picking serviceberries and mulberries along public property on DeKalb Avenue in Atlanta—for jams, syrups and cocktails—can attest. There are so many possibilities for Paste Food to address, from its politics and process to its tastiness on the plate. Our food editor is Sara Bir from Marietta, Ohio. She was a recipe developer for Martha Stewart Living and an editor at Section M magazine and the North Bay Bohemian. Her writing was just published in Best Food Writing 2014. She teaches cooking classes and has appeared on HGTV as a crafts expert. Award-winning writer and poet Amy Glynn, who gives us 12 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Food Footprint, is our assistant food editor.
Our comics editor is Sean Edgar, who has been writing about comic books for Paste for years before the subject got its own section. A former Paste intern, he was an assistant editor at WebMD, a digital marketer for Magnolia Pictures and director of new media for Watershed Distillery. He’s also the man who made me realize how rich a medium the state of current comics is for any adult or kid. Now I can’t wait for the next installment of Saga or Black Science, and I’ve even started working on a comic of my own with one of my favorite illustrators. This is a tremendously exciting time for the world of comic books, and we’re excited to give them their own home at Paste.
Our style editor, Brittany Joyce, was a stylist at Madewell, social media director at Aviary Organic Beauty and a sales consultant at Barney’s and Billy Reid. Paste Style is the best place to get realistic style inspiration and information for down-to-earth people who want to dress well and look sharp.
Heading up our new college section is Meagan Flynn, a current student at Drake University. She was an editorial intern at New York Magazine and Texas Monthly, and served as editorial assistant to New York editor-in-chief Adam Moss. Our college section will primarily be written by and for college students without ever insulting their intelligence or ambition.
These five new sections mark a further expansion for PasteMagazine.com, which now reaches 4.2 million unique visitors each month. Our goal covering each of these topics is to showcase signs of life in all facets of arts, leisure and culture—always combining great writing with engaging subject matter. We hope you’ll enjoy whichever subjects interest you most. You can always keep up with the latest from Paste by following us on Twitter or Facebook or subscribing to our free daily newsletter at the top of this page.