Staff

Debbie Rasmussen, publisher

debbie(at)b-word.org

On her first day of work back in 2004, Debbie nearly knocked the water cooler over and onto cofounder and then-publisher Lisa Jervis. Luckily no one held it against her, and in fact she was handed the publishing reins in 2006 when Lisa stepped down from the staff.

Prior to joining Bitch, Debbie was, at various points, involved in sexuality and reproductive justice work, union organizing, arts education, queer youth counseling, and racial- and economic-justice organizing. Way back in the day she also used to answer emergency road service calls from stranded Minnesotans in the dead of winter, which led to her fear of phones.

Debbie has a Master's degree in Publishing/Journalism from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she focused on grassroots publishing and media criticism. While there, she was a co-editor/co-publisher for the collectively run, community-supported, endearlingly-titled Madison Insurgent newspaper and co-led the first successful unionizing effort at the Whole Foods Market chain. She continues to speak and write about the importance of workers organizing.

Born and raised in a working-class family in Minneapolis, she returns home occasionally to help her grandma host tea parties. She also likes practicing yoga, playing the accordion, rearranging furniture, talking to animals, and adjusting the lighting. She writes occasionally, mostly for Bitch. Most recently she contributed to the anthology It's So You: 35 Women Write about Personal Expression through Fashion and Style.

Favorite zine: Doris

Favorite movies: Battle of Algiers, Breaking the Waves

Favorite authors: Jeannette Winterson, Arundhati Roy, Tariq Ali

Turn-ons: snow, apples, striped socks, dimmer switches

Turnoffs: cilantro, jerks, Judge Judy, meatloaf (the food and the musician)

Secretly wishes she were a: circus acrobat

Andi Zeisler, editorial/creative director

andi(at)b-word.org

Andi is the co-founder of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. A longtime freelance writer and illustrator, Andi's work has appeared in numerous periodicals and newspapers, including Ms., Mother Jones, Utne, BUST, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Women's Review of Books, and Hues. She is a former pop-music columnist for the SF Weekly and the East Bay Express, and also contributed to the anthologies Young Wives' Tales, Secrets and Confidences: The Complicated Truth About Women's Friendships (both from Seal Press), and Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit (Crown). She is the coeditor of BitchFest: 10 Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, and recently finished a book about feminism and popular culture for Seal Press. She speaks frequently on the subject of feminism and the media at various colleges and universities.

Andi graduated from The Colorado College in 1994 with a B.A. in Fine Art that has proved to be more or less useless, though she did use it to secure a job designing rugs for Pottery Barn back in the day. She passes her non-Bitch hours watching television and embroidering portraits of dogs, often simultaneously. Her other interests include painting, walking, candy, Scrabble, and the interrobang.

Fatal weakness: candy, naps

Crushes: Gram Parsons, Steve Buscemi, Hugh Laurie

Favorite TV shows: Freaks and Geeks, House, Dexter, dog shows

Turn-ons: clogs, flocked wallpaper, the Winter Olympics

Turnoffs: lip liner, improper punctuation

Secretly wishes she were a: zoo keeper

Briar Levit, art director

briar(at)b-word.org

Briar Levit is a graphic designer who blends her love of design with social/environmental progress. She first began working with Bitch in 2003 (starting with the Transformation and Reinvention issue). After a grad school hiatus to Central Saint Martins in London, Briar has returned to where she knows she belongs, not only as a designer, but as a feminist and pop culture junkie.

In addition to designing Bitch, Briar is an adjunct graphic design instructor at Portland State University and freelances under the not-so-covert name BriarMade. She works with a number of healthcare, environmental, and educational organizations. Although her roots lie in the San Francisco Bay Area, her design career has taken her to Washington DC, London… and now (permanently?) to Portland, Oregon. When not making printed matter, Briar listens to prog rock, watches lots of British TV shows, and walks with her four-legged creatures in and around Portland.

Forever celebrity crush: Peter Gabriel (Briar thinks she can convince anyone of his brilliance)

Favorite movies: Raising Arizona, The Life of Brian, Hope & Glory

Favorite TV shows: Absolutely Fabulous, Arrested Development, I'm Alan Partridge, The Sopranos, 30 Rock

Favorite books: Wanderlust (Rebecca Solnit), Ozma of Oz (L. Frank Baum), Orlando (Virginia Woolf)

Turn-ons: Tempeh and baby-sized Cokes

Turn-offs: Douchebags

Secretly wishes she were a: truck driver

Miriam Wolf, managing editor

miriam(at)b-word.org

Like a bad penny, Miriam keeps turning up in independent media. She started her career as an editor at Rod Serling's Twilight Zone magazine, where the slush pile consisted mainly of stories that ended "... and then he realized that he was already dead."

She spent the '90s as the features editor for the alternative weekly the San Francisco Bay Guardian, writing and editing about culture, books, food, and other vital pursuits. In addition, she was a contributing editor for the bimonthly comprehensive zine compendium Factsheet Five. This has left her with 20,000 zines in her basement.

Her freelance book reviews have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and the Portland Oregonian. She also blogs about food media for Chow.com.

Favorite color: Green

Favorite album: Plastic Seat Sweat, Southern Culture on the Skids

Favorite movies: The Big Lebowski, Choose Me, Kung Fu Hustle, Nashville

Favorite TV shows: Weeds, Sopranos, My Name is Earl

Favorite Books: My Year of Meats, anything by Haven Kimmel, Sacred Games

Turn-ons: Coffee

Turnoffs: No coffee

Secretly wishes she were a: writer

Amy Williams, development/outreach director

amy(at)b-word.org

Always a west coast gal, Amy has happily called Portland home for three years. After graduating with a B.A. in English, focusing on feminism in literature, Amy traveled the coast making stops to work at a publisher of health promotional pamphlets (Santa Cruz, CA), have a baby and work at a coffee company (San Francisco, CA), start a card and t-shirt business (Seattle, WA), and work/volunteer for a number of nonprofit organizations, most recently in the queer arena (Seattle and Portland). Amy came to B-Word/Bitch in May 2007 after working at Equity Foundation, a foundation granting to queer, under-served and non-traditional organizations, to coordinate fund development and outreach efforts and has since evolved to do organizational development and financial management as well.

As a self-proclaimed nonprofit junkie, Amy currently serves on the Board of a domestic violence organization in Portland and volunteers her time supporting a variety of organizations in the area, such as Q Doc, the country's first Queer Documentary Film Festival.

Amy believes that nonprofit organizations don't have to lose their politics to grow and expand and also believes a goal of many nonprofits should be to work themselves out of a job, because that means you've achieved your mission. Amy lives in SE Portland with her family and loves to cook, read, hike, play cards, and go to the movies.

Favorite color: chartreuse or chocolate brown or tangerine

Favorite album: Michael Jackson, Thriller

Favorite movies: Auntie Mame, my cousin vinnie, pillow talk, raise the red lantern

Favorite books: Fried Green Tomatoes At the Whistle Stop Café, All Men are Mortal, Kite Runner, Age of Innocence

Turn-ons: well-read, outspoken, good hearts, good hair

Turnoffs: greed, apathy, intellectuals with attitude

Celebrity crush: Mary Stuart Masterson

Secretly wishes she were a: tap dancer

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Brian Frank, operations manager

brian(at)b-word.org

Brian is the Operations Manager at B-Word/Bitch Magazine, keeping the administrative and financial gears turning. Brian has been active in social justice and environmental causes for the past decade, most recently working for the human rights group Global Exchange and co- founding the North American branch of the grassroots energy / climate change network Rising Tide. When not partying with databases or spreadsheets, Brian is probably in the kitchen, gardening, or botanizing in the Cascade mountains.

Favorite TV show: Six Feet Under, Heroes, Twin Peaks

Favorite directors: Emir Kusturica, Hayao Miyazaki

Best Celebrity Impersonation: Morrissey

Turn ons: Eggplant, basil, tomatoes, and curries of all types

Turn offs: Teflon

Secretly wishes he was a: vegetarian cooking / relationship advice tv show host

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Julie Sabatier, podcast producer

julie(at)destinationdiy.org

Julie has been reading Bitch since her days as an Oberlin College student and was honored to come on board to help out with the podcast. In addition to assisting the Bitch folks with their quarterly audio project, Julie Sabatier hosts and produces a monthly radio show/podcast of her own called Destination DIY. She has produced quality radio for outlets such as Pacifica and American Public Media. She is also the associate producer of Oregon Public Broadcasting's daily talk show Think Out Loud. Julie spent her formative years in Baltimore and now lives happily in Portland, Oregon in a house full of men and cats.

Fatal weakness: spell check

Favorite books: Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Favorite movie: His Girl Friday

Turn-ons: nectarines, throw pillows, microphones, men in skirts

Turnoffs: grammatical errors, television

Secretly wishes she were a: lazy person

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Sara Dier, publishing intern

publishing(at)b-word.org

Seemingly the only Portland native intern, Sara stands alone in her tolerance for a good downpour and awkwardness with heat. Recently graduated from Oregon State University, Sara is putting her skills to the test as the publishing intern here at Bitch, and in the fall she will be jumping across the pond for yet another internship in London. No stranger to the feminist publishing scene, Sara previously interned for CALYX press, and she remains a volunteer there. Sara has also worked as editor for OSU’s PRISM literary magazine.

When she is not interning for Bitch, Sara is hiding from the sunshine, taking photographs, and moderating an online fiction writers group. A fan of randomosity, she listed the following random facts about herself: Sara has a perpetual fear of the future and a strange love for kitchen tongs. She has a celebrity crush on Daniel Day-Lewis and Laura Linney. She secretly wishes she were a traveling show host. She dunks her head in ice water in the morning, collects quills and typewriters, and she is determined to one day be able to leave a handprint in wet cement.

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Dana Keren, outreach intern

outreach(at)b-word.org

With her fear of bathtubs finally behind her, Dana is at last able to take a shower without wearing her flip flops, and can even handle the occasional brush with the shower curtain. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Dana picked herself up and moved to Portland, Oregon to begin her internship with Bitch Magazine. Her lifelong dedication to social justice has translated into time spent working with the ACLU’s Other America Tour, SER: Jobs for Progress, and a handful of local political campaigns.

Back home, Dana spent most of her time serving corned beef sandwiches and chocolate phosphates to her regular customers at the Milwaukee institution Benji’s Deli. She occasionally attempts baking homemade goods, occupies her time by writing to-do lists, can’t pass up a good chant (everybody now!), and has recently discovered Bikram yoga in all of its sweaty goodness!

With a degree in Linguistics and Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she believes she can offer fresh ideas and perspective, and is excited to be the newest addition to the Bitch crew. She is still working on her approach to an anxiety-free soak in the tub.

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Rebecca Coffman, design intern

design(at)b-word.org

Yet another Midwest transplant, Rebecca moved to Portland from Michigan nine years ago. She is finishing a B. A. of Graphic Design at Portland State University this summer and hopes to use her skills to support environmental/social programs and small businesses.

Coming from a fine art background, Rebecca loves to incorporate her paintings and collages into her design. When not making things, she is either riding her bike, reading, or hiking in the woods somewhere.

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Kjerstin Johnson, editorial intern

info(at)b-word.org

Kjerstin Johnson was born and raised in Kansas City proper (that is, Missouri) and moved to Oregon with her parents soon after she had moved to Minnesota for college, where she had the opportunity to study abroad in France and Vietnam. After four years of working in the school library and radio station, she earned a degree in sociology/anthropology and women's and gender studies, but has since continued research in her previous fields of expertise, namely Krazy Kat comics and meticulously crafted mix CDs.

Kjerstin can't imagine a better place to punch her clock than Bitch (feminism and pop culture? Who'd a thunk!) and has recently volunteered for the Rock'n'Roll Camp for Girls and at the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland. Kjerstin wishes she could draw better and would appreciate a call if you have any spare plane tickets lying around to New York, Kansas City, or Minneapolis, or job opportunities involving publishing/saving the world.