Staff

By Dylan Matthias, Editor-in-chief
• August 12, 2011

The Gazette is a student-run publication and it relies on the hard work of its staff and volunteer contributors to exist. Our editorial staff are elected by the Dalhousie student body and Gazette staff contributors at an annual general meeting each spring. Contributors can write any time on any subject: feel free to drop us a line or an article.

Editors

Dylan Matthias, Editor-in-chief

Dylan is beginning to worry that he’s been around the Gazette too long, mostly because he’s now been roped into running the paper for all of the 2011-12 year. He’s a fifth-year student trying to do English, journalism and creative writing all at the same time. In his (diminishing) spare time, he covers university soccer on various blogs and writes speculative fiction novels on such themes as death, power and political corruption. He enjoys contradictions and wishes time-travel existed right now. He ran a high school paper called The Wall for two years in very rural Nova Scotia, and he now realizes that stress then has nothing on stress now. Drop by the office to chat, eat leftover pizza, or volunteer. This paper’s important, and we’re all in it together—otherwise Dylan probably would have found something better to devour his time by now.

Erica Eades, Copy Editor/Arts Editor

Born in the small town of Almonte, Ont., Erica developed an appreciation for the arts at a young age. Her childhood was filled with drama classes, piano lessons and art camp, and during her free time, you could find her curled up reading in a comfy chair, or working on her next great literary masterpiece (the first being “The Baby Dragons,” a short story written at age six about the joys of friendship and Polly Pockets). Erica later settled in Halifax to begin her degree at Dalhousie University. Initially studying international development, her childhood love of reading and the arts motivated her to switch degrees and pursue a major in English with a minor in journalism studies. She began writing for the Dalhousie Gazette in 2009 and moved up to assistant arts editor in 2010. Now she’ll be taking on a more substantial role at the paper as both arts editor and copy editor. Erica has big shoes to fill this year, but she brings with her a solid grasp of the English language, and a desire to further the paper, whether that’s through increasing readership, offering top-notch arts reporting, or providing exceptionally clean copy. If you’d like to get in touch with Erica, stop by a contributors meeting on Monday night in room 312 of the SUB. There’ll be pitches, pizza, and a lot of pretty cool people.

Katrina Pyne, News Editor

Ninety-nine per cent coffee and one per cent nervous anxiety makes up Katrina. She may have only entered the journalism program at King’s because she’d watched a lot of the Gilmore Girls the night before the registration deadline, but she’s pretty sure she’s in the right field now, she thinks. Born and raised in Kingston, Ontario, she spent the summer as a rural reporter for her hometown paper, mostly taking photos of tractor races and fishing excursions. She is now pleased—no, thrilled—to be taking on the role of news editor at the Gazette after many unpaid late nights working to meet the Gazette deadline over the last two years. She is heading into her third year of journalism at King’s doing combined honours with international development studies and apologizes in advance for eating most of the pizza at contributor’s meetings.

Torey Ellis, Assistant News Editor

Torey is one of those messy King’s-Dal hybrid students, in her third year of a journalism and Canadian studies combined honours program. She comes from southern Ontario (not Toronto, thanks very much) and plans to use that very marketable journalism degree to learn about the other 95 per cent of the country. Most of her time is spent either whittling down that pile of really great books she just hasn’t been able to get to yet, or wandering around a certain Barrington St. used bookstore finding even better ones. Failing either of those options, she’ll probably be baking something sinful because everything seems more accomplishable if you smell some melted butter.

Matthew Ritchie, Opinions Editor

Born and raised in Toronto, Ont., Matthew moved to Halifax when he was 17 to begin a degree in English at Dalhousie. But after a few years of reading the works of others, he began submitting articles to Exclaim! magazine and writing for the Dalhousie Gazette. This foray into journalism grew into a position at the paper as assistant arts editor in 2009, leading to his recent return to the Gazette as the new editor of the Opinions section. Matthew has an interest in Canadian politics, social media and art history. While not working at the Gazette, he contributes to The Coast and rides his bike around the city.

Ian Froese, Sports Editor

Born and raised in rural Manitoba, Ian is studying journalism at the University of King’s College. Before writing sports routinely for the Gazette last year, Ian contributed to the student paper at the University of Manitoba. This summer he worked as a reporter/photographer for The Carillon, an award-winning weekly newspaper near his hometown.

Angela Gzowski, Photo Editor

Jenna Harvie, Creative Editor

Jenna is a writer. She just graduated from the University of King’s College with a BA in English and creative writing. She has had the pleasure of seeing multiple poems and short stories published in Halifax and in her hometown of Ottawa. Throughout her four years at King’s and Dalhousie she has worked as fiction editor, design editor, and editor-in-chief of Fathom; design editor of Verso; fiction editor for the Gazette; and copy editor for Just. She also writes for a horror blog where she reviews comics and graphic novels. She is continuing her education at Dalhousie by starting in computer science where she specializes in graphics, gaming and media. Her new career path will help her finish her science fiction novels as well as provide inspiration for the genres that she writes in.

Leilani Graham-Laidlaw, Online Editor

Leilani is the online editor for the Dalhousie Gazette – which means doing about a billion different things to keep this site going. Which is fun. She likes being busy, and to that effect also works at the CBC, the Smiling Goat Organic Espresso Bar, writes for various publications, and is in her final year of a Bachelor of Journalism Honours degree at the University of King’s College. She can usually be found buried deep into RSS feeds, attempting to learn code/graphic design/insert nerdy thing here, anywhere there is lots of coffee, or bouncing around like a magpie after some shiny new story.

Rob Sangster-Poole, Assistant Online Editor

Rob’s main job with the Gazette is to keep the Online Editor relatively sane. This can be difficult.

When not performing this key role, he spends his free time in the kitchen, cooking and baking. Upon completing his honours in International Development Studies and History, Rob plans to put off the inevitable law degree that will consume the golden years of his youth. This life detour will hopefully be done by working as an apprentice baker in a small business during the day, while moonlighting as some sort of street performer (preferably a mime/fire-breather/fortune-teller). Or something like that.

Jonathan Rotsztain, Art Director/Comics Editor

Jonathan Rotsztain is a freelance writer and graphic designer. He specializes in and offers communications services: Editorial Design, Typography, Branding/Identity, Print Production, Illustration, Web Design, Communications Writing and Project Management.

Jonathan has worked with many clients in Halifax and around the world including jane’s on the common, FRED., Nimbus Publishing, Ecology Action Centre, Aisling Discoveries, RBR Development, Bus Stop Theatre, eyelevel gallery and Byrony House.

Jonathan has served as the Art Director of the Dalhousie Gazette since August 2009. He is responsible for the new brand and interior redesign, layout, graphic generation, advertising and pre-press as well as illustration coordination.

Jonathan is partner at ALL CAPS Design. Feel free to get in touch with him at Design@DalGazette.com or Jonathan@ALLCAPSDesign.com

Staff Contributors

Alesia Hebb, Staff Contributor

Alesia is an ambitious ball of fire. She may be from the Annapolis Valley, but she has found a way to make her country roots work for her in the city too. She can be described as a high stress bottle-rocket in a little package, but she makes up for her tiny stature with her enormous personality. Alesia is a second-year Dalhousie student who started out in environmental science but quickly fell in love with journalism. She will officially be starting her first year of journalism at King’s next year. She enjoys writing for the News and Opinion sections in the Dalhousie Gazette, but never starts a story or interview without a trusty cup of herbal tea at hand. Her biggest fear in life is being average and she settles for nothing less than the best.

Alyssa Zeisler, Business Columnist

Alyssa is a Masters in Management candidate at the London Business School in the UK. She is awesome, and submits her column, which is distributed to brokers weekly, to the Gazette because Leilani conned her into it. They go way back. (*this is just a temporary bio, in case that wasn't obvious.)

Andrew Johnson, Staff Contributor

Hailing from Saint John, Andrew followed his frosh leader to a Gazette contributor's meeting in his first week at Dalhousie and hasn't looked back. He took on the women's soccer beat, attending games at Wickwire no matter the weather and watching the webcast whenever the Tigers were on a different pitch. He does not claim any responsibility for the Tigers winning the league championship during his first season covering the team.

Arfa Ayub, Staff Contributor

Originally from Lahore, Pakistan, Arfa moved to Canada at the age of nine. She spent a year in Toronto before moving to Halifax. In the East Coast, not sure how (must be a Canadian thing!), but she began to watch and love hockey. Now she typically covers men's hockey for the Gazette. Arfa has been with the Gazette since her last year of high school as part of a cooperative education internship. Once she graduated, she came to Dal to study Political Science and is currently in her second year. Aside from continuing to write for the paper, Arfa completed an internship with Global Maritimes.

Calum Agnew, News Contributor

Colin Hebb, Health Columnist

Colin is a master of directionless success. At one point, finding himself cheering for the Axemen studying political science in Wolfville, and another trying to hide the fact that he was attending the “school” at the end of Robie Street earning an MBA, and now as a proud Dalhousian completing an MSc in kinesiology. Furthering his efforts to achieve record levels of student debt, Colin worked exclusively for not-for-profit organizations (Dartmouth General Foundation and Neptune Theatre) between degrees, making no money but feeling really good about himself. Colin has really focused hobbies that include running, comic books and helping out on his parent's farm. At this point, it should probably come as no surprise that Colin has applied to med school for the fall and failing that will probably end up growing beets on the farm and working for a mid-level paper supply company.

Daniel Boltinsky, News Contributor

Graeme Benjamin, Staff Contributor

Henry Whitfield, Staff Contributor

Hailing from across the pond, Henry was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada in the early 90′s. Although unable to skate upon arrival, he fell in love with the game of hockey and has been a true puckhead since day one. Now residing in Halifax, he is an aspiring sports journalist and wanna-be radio personality who writes about the world of sports as he sees it. He can also be found on www.sportstream.ca and CKDU radio.

Jason Savoury, Staff Contributor

Jason has been slumming it with the Gazette sports staff ever since he saw Ian sitting forlornly alone with his white board, sniffing dry-erase markers. When Jason isn’t ruining his posture sitting in the stands at the Dalplex, he spends the rest of his time trying to figure out how to turn ultimate frisbee into a varsity sport and plotting how to steal an entire box of pizza for himself from the contributor’s meeting.

Judith Booth and Karissa Milbury, Science Podcasters

Kristie Smith, Staff Contributor

Following the steps of many over-excited but well-intentioned journalists before her, Kristie moved to Halifax to study journalism at King's. Naturally, her curious nature, love of writing, and the smell of pizza brought her to the Gazette, where her talents have been put to good use. With interests that have brought her to every section of the paper, from a controversial rugby article to no-crap opinion pieces and six-hour DSU council coverage, she can be found anywhere the story is. Kristie has worked for other papers, from the Telegraph Journal in Saint John, N.B. to The Watch a campus over, and is in the middle of her second year of King's Journalism (Honours) program. Feel free to follow her on Twitter, @Kristie5mith.

Mathew Holden, Music Columnist

Mathew Holden is a second-year commerce student from Surrey, BC. When he is not in school, he has been known to wander the world, including long backpacking trips through Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and North America. He collects records and has a newfound obsession with reading classical literature. As well as being a Gazette columnist, he is also the host of Needle Vs Groove on CKDU.

Nick Laugher, Staff Contributor

Never profiting from the pithy pitfalls or pedantic antics of the common journalist, Nick "Noose Papermen" Laugher has continuously baffled readers by demonstrating a rare understanding of the vagaries of our current cultural climate. Rumored to have been conceived and raised in the nook of a knotty pine somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, Laugher was forced to abandon his true calling (pottery) after having one night experienced a vision in which a wise and generous hawk appeared to him through the shimmering static of his television set. The apparition spoke to Laugher of an aching need for some new kind of media perspective, one that elegantly incorporated esoteric vocabulary, gratuitous alliteration and penetrating pun-manship. And so it was. And so it is. And so it always will be.

Paula Sanderson, Staff Contributor

Rachel Eades, DIY Columnist

Rachel Eades is currently living the small-town life with her partner, gardening, cooking, crafting, and generally learning how to live a self-sufficient and thrifty life. When not writing columns, she can be found at www.diyorsomething.wordpress.com

Rose Behar, Fashion Columnist

Rose Behar is a second-year journalism student at the University of King's College who loves fashion so much, all she wants to do is write about it. The Gazette is helping her fulfill this goal. In her spare time, Rose reads fashion magazines, watches Fashion File, shops, and sits in her closet looking adoringly at her clothes.

Tim Vanderweide, Staff Contributor

Tim traveled here from Fenwick, Ont., a small town just outside of Niagara Falls. He is currently in his second year of a BSc Kinesiology degree. Tim loves soccer and, as a varsity soccer alumnus, jumped at the opportunity to cover the Dalhousie’s men's team this season. He has also played/enjoys hockey (Go Leafs!), softball, baseball, lacrosse and volleyball, and also likes spending his Sunday evening's curling. When he isn’t studying or working at Tim Hortons, Tim spends his days relaxing, watching soccer (Liverpool and Toronto especially), or catching some great Tigers action, except football, he doesn’t enjoy football. He likes to believe he may one day be a sports journalist or be scouring the country looking for young sporting talent as a scout. He may even aspire to do something with his degree one day and be an athletic trainer or something.