THE MAGAZINE
 Los Angeles is a regional magazine of national stature. Produced monthly since the spring of 1961, with a combination of award-winning feature writing, investigative reporting, service journalism, and design, Los Angeles is the definitive resource and indispensable guide for Angelenos. We cover the people, lifestyle, culture, entertainment, fashion, art and architecture, and news that define Southern California.

THE STAFF

EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief Kit Rachlis
Rachlis joined Los Angeles magazine in 2000. In his first year, the magazine was nominated for two national magazine awards, only the second and third nominations in the magazine’s then 45-year history. It has since been nominated for a total of six ASME awards under his tenure. Rachlis has served as art editor of the Boston Phoenix, executive editor of The Village Voice, editor-in-chief of LA Weekly, and senior projects editor at the Los Angeles Times.

Executive Editor Mary Melton
Melton, who joined Los Angeles in 2000, oversees special issues and projects for the magazine, in addition to editing features, departments, and writing personality profiles and popular culture stories. Her article about Julius Shulman’s famous photograph of Case Study House No. 22 was reprinted in the Taschen book, Case Study Houses. A fourth-generation Angeleno and a graduate of UCLA, she is a former editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine and the former managing editor of the LA Weekly.

Art Director Joe Kimberling
During his seven-year tenure with Los Angeles magazine, Kimberling has received numerous awards from the Society of Publication Designers, and his work has been recognized by Print and Communications Arts magazines and the City and Regional Magazine Association (CRMA), which named him designer of the year in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2007. He is a former art director of Entertainment Weekly.

Features Editor Matthew Segal
Segal, who was managing editor at Los Angeles  for nine years, now edits features and oversees the magazine’s business and travel coverage. The former managing editor of Buzz Weekly and senior editor of Men’s Fitness, he’s collaborated on several award-winning stories and has written for Outside, GQ, and Details, among other publications.

Managing Editor Ann Herold
Herold was at the Los Angeles Times from 1983 to 2007, and was managing editor of the Times’ Sunday magazine for 16 years. The Santa Barbara native has written extensively on her hometown and on homes and gardens, food, travel, and sports, and won a James Beard Foundation award for a piece that appeared in Saveur magazine. She is also a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Southern California.

Production Director Julia St. Pierre
St. Pierre joined Los Angeles in 1993. She oversees the production and printing of all pages of the magazine, as well as all ancillary and custom publishing projects, which include Los Angeles Weddings, Orange Coast Weddings, Beverly Hills magazine, the Dining Guide, and St. John’s magazine. Her career in print production has also included stints at LA Style magazine, Austin Homes and Gardens magazine, trade publications, advertising agencies, and graphic arts companies.

Senior Editor Richard E. Meyer
Meyer came to Los Angeles magazine in 2008 after 28 years with the Los Angeles Times, where he helped edit two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories and wrote two that were Pulitzer finalists. Before joining the Times, he spent 14 years with the Associated Press, where he was a White House correspondent and a national news-features writer. He has won a Sigma Delta Chi award for magazine reporting and shared the Merriman Smith Award for deadline writing, and the Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting.

Senior Editor RJ Smith
Smith has been a visiting community scholar at the Getty Research Institute and a visiting scholar at USC’s Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies. He writes Los Angeles magazine’s media column. Smith served on the staff of Details, Spin, and The Village Voice. His book, The Great Black Way: L.A.’s Central Avenue, about jazz and civil rights in 1940s Los Angeles, was published in 2006 and won the California Book Award in the Californiana category.

Senior Editor Karen Wada
Before joining Los Angeles, Wada worked on daily newspapers for more than two decades, including 20 years at the Los Angeles Times where, as managing editor, she served as co-no. 2 of the nation’s largest daily newsroom, overseeing international and national news, and editing the special front-page feature called Column One.

Senior Writer Margot Dougherty
During her tenure at Los Angeles, Dougherty has been entertainment editor, style editor, and dine editor, and now, a senior writer. Previously, she held editorial positions with Life, People, and Entertainment Weekly. Dougherty spent four years in Sydney, serving on the start-up team and as entertainment editor of Who Weekly, the Australian edition of People.

Senior Writer Dave Gardetta
Before arriving at Los Angeles magazine in 2002, Gardetta was a freelancer and writer-at-large for the magazine. A national magazine finalist in features for his Los Angeles story “Hooking Up,” he has written for Travel & Leisure, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, GQ, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Men’s Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the International Herald Tribune.

Senior Writer Jesse Katz
Katz’s Los Angeles magazine article, “The Recruit” was a finalist for a national magazine award in 2006. His story “The Last Ride of Jesse James Hollywood” was selected for inclusion in the 2003 edition of Best American Crime Reporting. A winner of several city and regional magazine awards, Katz spent 15 years as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sharing in two Pulitzer prizes. In 1992, he was also a Pulitzer finalist for beat reporting.

Senior Writer Steve Oney
Oney is the author of And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. Published by Pantheon in 2003, the book won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel award and the Jewish Book Council’s National Jewish Book award. Oney, who has written for many national publications, has been a senior writer at Premiere magazine and was a senior editor of California magazine. His 2007 Los Angeles magazine story, “Casualties of War,” is a national magazine finalist for profile writing this year.

Style Director Laurie Pike
Pike oversees the style section and all of the fashion and beauty features for Los Angeles magazine. Her career includes stints at Paper magazine, MTV’s “House of Style,” the BBC, and KTTV Los Angeles. She founded the alternative magazine Glue and has written for the new York Times, the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Bust, Angeleno, and I-D. Pike served as founding editor-in-chief at Distinction, and most recently at la.com.

Copy Chief Daphne Tanyol
Tanyol has been copy chief of Los Angeles since 1998. Previously she was managing editor of the Academy of Arts & Sciences magazine, Emmy, and style editor of California.

Research Editor Eric Mercado
Mercado has been research editor at Los Angeles since 1995, where he oversees the research department and manages the editorial interns. His primary job, however, is making sure no mistakes creep into the magazine. Mercado, a former reporter at Eastern Group Publications in East L.A., served as associate research editor at LA Weekly before coming to Los Angeles.

Guide Editor Michael Mullen
After internships in the Republican Policy Committee in Washington, D.C., and at Americom in Moscow, Russia, and a brief stint as a financial analyst, Mullen moved to Prague. He spent a number of years in New York working on the online versions of Redbook, Cosmo, and other Hearst magazines, as well as freelancing for Dennis Publishing’s lad magazines. He has lived in Los Angeles for seven years.

Associate Editor Lesley Bargar
Bargar, who oversees the dining and food listings in Los Angeles, began her career at the music magazine Filter where she served as a staff writer and associate editor. In 2005 she became editor-in-chief for the alternative weekly newspaper L.A. Alternative. While there she oversaw all aspects of its cultural and political coverage, supervised the paper’s transition from bi-weekly to weekly, and orchestrated a full redesign.

Associate Editor Leilah Bernstein
Bernstein joined Los Angeles magazine in March. Previously she was an associate editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine, having completed internships there and with the L.A. Times’ Food section. She also wrote stories for the Food section in addition to the magazine. A fourth-generation Angeleno who also helps at her family’s 54-year-old antiquarian bookstore downtown, Bernstein graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from UCLA and a master’s in print journalism from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication.

Associate Editor Sorina Diaconescu
Diaconescu grew up in Bucharest, Romania, and earned a degree in French and European Studies from UCLA and an M.A. in print journalism from USC. Since then, she has covered film, fashion and music for Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Times magazine, LA Weekly, Variety, FashionWireDaily.com and Hollywood Life. Prior to joining the staff of Los Angeles magazine in 2007, she was the editor-in-chief of Mean.

Associate Editor Robert Ito
Ito reviews books for Los Angeles. He has written for The Village Voice, Salon, The Believer, and The New York Times, and he contributed to At Issue in History: Japanese American Concentration Camps and the Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature.

Associate Editor Kari Mozena
In 1996 Mozena created the party pages (The Seen) for Los Angeles and now fields multiple event invitations every day. Mozena contributes reviews to the dining guide, travel sections, and Best of L.A. and has written service features for the magazine.

Associate Editor Chris Nichols
Nichols joined Los Angeles magazine in 2000 and brings a historical perspective to the magazine with pieces on lost neon, vintage road trips, and the last elevator operator in L.A. Nichols, a former chair of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee, writes the magazine’s Ask Chris column and recently published a book about Los Angeles architect Wayne McAllister.

Associate Editor Sara Wilson
Wilson joined Los Angeles magazine in 2007 after stints at Toronto Life and the Globe and Mail. A native of Toronto, she has written for The Economist, The Independent (London), and People, and currently assists in writing and editing the Buzz section. Wilson, has interned at Teen People and New York magazines, and is a graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course.

Photo Editor Kathleen Clark
Clark’s feature photography has appeared in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Preservation, L.A. Weekly, Santa Barbara Magazine, and The Village Voice. She has received numerous awards in photography and design, as well as fine art fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and Seattle and Oregon arts commissions.

Deputy Art Director Lisa M. Lewis
Before joining Los Angeles in 1997, Lewis worked as an art director in the entertainment industry and in custom publishing for healthcare and music industries (and spent 1 ½ years traveling the world). A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Art & Design, she has received numerous awards from the Society of Publication Designers and been honored by the City and Regional Magazine Association.

Associate Art Director Steven Banks
A graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York, Banks worked at Spin magazine before returning to his hometown and designing for Boston magazine. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990, and worked at the Los Angeles Times at the paper’s Sunday magazine. Banks joined Los Angeles in 2006.

Writer-at-Large Ed Leibowitz
Leibowitz has written major profiles of Eli Broad, Rick Caruso, and Charlton Heston, among other subjects, for Los Angeles. He received his master’s degree from Columbia University Journalism School, where he was the recipient of the magazine writer award. The City and Regional Magazine Association named his account of convicted “eco-terrorist” Billy Cottrell as one of the best features of 2006. He has written for The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal, the Guardian, Time Asia, Money, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times.

Writer-at-Large J.R. Moehringer
A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, Moehringer won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2000 for his Times piece on Gee’s Bend, Alabama. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998 for his Los Angeles Times Magazine piece, “The Champ,” which was adapted into the 2007 film Resurrecting the Champ. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Moehringer is the author of the best-selling memoir The Tender Bar.

Contributing Writer/Books Tom Carson
Carson won two national magazine awards as Esquire’s “Screen” columnist, and was nominated again in 2006 and 2008 for his current GQ column, “The Critic.” Previously on staff at LA Weekly and then The Village Voice, he has written for publications ranging from Rolling Stone to the Atlantic Monthly. His novel Gilligan’s Wake was a New York Times notable book of 2003.

Contributing Writer/ Sports David Davis
Davis has written about sports for, among others, Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, and The Forward. In 2004, Davis curated the critically acclaimed exhibit “Play by Play: A Century of Los Angeles Sports Photography, 1889-1989” (at the Los Angeles Central Library), and wrote the companion book Play By Play: Los Angeles Sports Photography, 1889-1989, published by Angel City Press.

Contributing Writer/Film Steve Erickson
Erickson is the author of ten books, including 2007’s critically acclaimed novel Zeroville. He teaches at CalArts and is editor of Black Clock, the school’s literary journal. Erickson has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times Magazine. The film critic for Los Angeles magazine since 2001, he’s received five city and regional magazine awards. His Web site is steveerickson.org.

Contributing Writer/ Hollywoodland Brian Frazer
A former stand-up who contributes regularly to Esquire and ESPN The Magazine, Frazer has also written for numerous television shows including MAD TV, The Tom Green Show, and Blind Date. His first book, Hypochondriac: One Man’s Quest To Hurry Up and Calm Down, was published in 2007.

Contributing Writer/Restaurant Critic Patric Kuh
Kuh, who started his career by cooking in restaurants, is the author of the James Beard award-winning Last Days of Haute Cuisine, a history of the American restaurant business. The magazine’s chief restaurant critic since 2000, he was the recipient of the 2006 James Beard Foundation award for best magazine restaurant critic in America. Kuh has been published in Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine.

Contributing Writer/ Business Mark Lacter
Lacter has covered Southern California business extensively as both an editor and reporter. He was editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal, which won numerous national and regional awards during his tenure; a senior editor for Forbes magazine, covering media and entertainment; and has held a variety of posts at the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Daily News, and Orange County Register. Lacter was also named by the Society of Professional Journalists as distinguished journalist of the year, and he does business analysis on KPCC-FM.

Contributing Writer/ Books Ariel Swartley
Swartley has written about books, music, gardens, television, culinary history, and other varieties of popular culture for many publications, among them the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Boston Phoenix. Her essays have been featured in collections including The Misread City and Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island.

BUSINESS
President and Publisher Amy Banner Saralegui
A Texan who started her career at Texas Monthly magazine in ad sales, Saralegui moved with Texas Monthly to its New York office, Mediatex National Sales, where she also sold advertising for Chicago magazine. From there Saralegui went to the client side, serving for many years as the Retail Marketing Director for Polo Ralph Lauren. During her years in Manhattan she and her husband also owned restaurants in the city. In 2000 Saralegui became Interim Publisher for Latina magazine. In 2002 she returned to Texas Monthly and Emmis Communications as the Texas Advertising Director. She was named Publisher and President of Los Angeles magazine in September 2007.

Vice President and General Manager Barbara Burden
Burden, a California native, graduated from Pomona College. She joined Los Angeles magazine in 1977 and has served as Vice President of Finance, Circulation Director and Vice President & General Manager.

Vice President, Marketing June Miller Richards
Richards joined Los Angeles magazine in 2004. Prior to her current position, Richards held senior marketing posts at such publications as Rolling Stone, Movieline, and L.A. Style. In addition, she headed up her own marketing consultancies, June M.R. Marketing and Miller*Gabriel, with clients spanning multiple categories including entertainment with the American Film Institute; media such as LA.com; in publishing for Book and Esquire magazines; non-profits such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Concern Foundation; and numerous restaurant, fashion, and beauty accounts such as Giorgio Beverly Hills. Her retail marketing experience includes posts with Two Rodeo, The Broadway, Robinson’s, and Macy’s.