Christian hails from the great Mid-Atlantic state of Maryland. Her close vicinity to the nation’s capital provided her with a number of job opportunities, including Assistant House Manager at Studio Theatre and Associate Writer at Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. Christian graduated from Syracuse University in the spring of 2008 with a B.F.A. in Drama and European History. While at Syracuse, Christian’s original play The Scenic Route was chosen and produced as part of the annual New Playwrights Festival at Storch Theatre. She was cast in a number of productions over the years, culminating in her understudying the lead role for Syracuse Stage’s production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. As a member of the Syracuse Drama Department, Christian was cast in a political satire on the Iraq War, which had its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. She spent the fall semester of her junior year in London taking classes at the Globe Theatre, travelling around Europe, and falling madly in love with all things British.

Jennifer Davis is a freelance journalist, vocalist, and fervent Russophile who recently returned from a seven-year stint in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her articles on Russian jazz, rock clubs, and restaurants have appeared in The St. Petersburg Times, The Moscow Times and Pulse magazine. As the singer for St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review and the retro-soul band J.D. and the Blenders, Jennifer has recorded two albums, several singles and has appeared on Russian and international TV and radio. After numerous bus tours across Europe and Russia as the only female in two all-male groups, Jennifer is an authority on the indie music scene and the strange creatures known as Russian men. She has a B.A. in Slavic languages and literature from Indiana University.

Jennifer’s blog on arts and culture is http://beetsalad.wordpress.com/

Amanda is spending her Fall and Spring semester as the teaching assistant for the new-this-year Web Journalism class, leading workshops on new media technology, and ensuring that her students know who’s boss. During the fall semester she worked as an assistant for the Urban Video Project, designing PR material and assembling proposals. One of her current endeavors is managing and perfecting her portfolio/blog Web site: amandajhartman.com.

In September, Amanda was awarded the Buffalo Broadcasters Association’s inaugural “Tim Russert Medal of Merit.” She received the award at the association’s annual hall of fame event.

Before Amanda arrived at the Goldring Arts Journalism program, she finished a yearlong internship at Rochester’s Democrat & Chronicle, as part of a team that developed and launched RocLoop.com, a new website for Rochester’s college students. Her internship inspired a new passion for covering the arts and culture, in both written and video format. Half her time was spent with a reporter’s notebook and pencil in hand, the other half with a video camera and tripod slung over her shoulder. Along with interning, she served as news director of The College at Brockport’s weekly television news program, “Brockport Campus News.“ She also interned at Brockport’s Marketing Communications Department and was a teacher’s assistant for a freshman video production class. Before her four semesters at Brockport, she graduated from Finger Lakes Community College, interned at what is now affectionately called the “C-Mac” and kept busy with all things video at the school.

As a child, PennyMaria’s interest in the arts was nurtured at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Miami, Florida where she was born and raised.

She attended the University of Central Florida for undergraduate school where she obtained dual degrees in Theatre Studies and Broadcast Journalism with honors. She was also a McNair Scholar and produced a thesis that evaluated the effects of FCC deregulation on media ownership. PennyMaria is currently interning at Signature Theatre Company in New York City and has previously interned at Syracuse Stage. She loves being a part of the non-profit world and is amazed by the power community art has to create social change PennyMaria.

Upon completion of her degree, PennyMaria looks forward to working at a non-profit arts organization or covering arts events that benefit the community at a magazine, newspaper or for an online publication. Last semester, PennyMaria was also a contributing arts writer for the Daily Orange and Syracuse City Eagle. This semester, she contributes to CNYStyle where she discusses costuming.

Click here to visit PennyMaria's website and view some of her work.

With an insatiable love for the arts, Buffalo native Daniel Kushner is both a writer and aspiring composer. Daniel is a regular contributor to The Post-Standard in Syracuse as a classical music critic. In April 2008,he premiered his song series “Kaptain Kierkegaard Teaches Us An Art Lesson”, and his previous works include piano miniatures and chamber music. While composing during his free time at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY, Daniel studied voice as a tenor, graduating with a B.A. in Music. In May 2007, a life-changing, two-week art excursion to Paris and London inspired him to write “The Newcini Triptych,” an unpublished fictional work the author describes as a “coming-of-age arts fantasia.” His interests also extend to popular culture, ice hockey, and all things Icelandic.

Jenni is currently interning with American Theatre magazine in New York City as an editorial assistant. Previously, she worked with The Post-Standard in Syracuse, NY as a contributing writer. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Le Tintamarre, the only French-language newspaper in the US published by undergraduates. She recently graduated from Centenary College in Shreveport, LA with a double degree in Theater and French & Communication, with an emphasis on professional writing. While at Centenary, she was also the theater correspondent for the campus newspaper The Conglomerate, and the artistic director of the Centenary Musical Theater Group. She continues to design book covers and layouts with Centenary’s book press, Les Editions Tintamarre.

Jenni has also worked as assistant stage manager at the Shreveport Opera, acted with River City Repertory, and served as the PR director, sound designer, and fundraising chair at the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse. She is originally from San Antonio.

Michael is currently interning for the Syracuse International Film Festival, and is a regular contributor of film and music reviews to the Syracuse Post-Standard. Michael is a former editor at the monthly business-to-business publication EContent, where he temporarily suppressed his infatuation with film, television, and culture to report on digital content. Prior to his stint at EContent, Michael spent his first year out of college backpacking across Western Europe, playing blackjack semi-professionally, and blogging about the emotional highs and lows of applying to entry-level publishing jobs.

Michael graduated with a degree in English from Yale University, where he served as executive editor, arts editor, and film critic for the Yale Herald (Yale's “alt-weekly”). He also spent most weekends playing trumpet and being irreverent at sports games with the members of the Yale Precision Marching Band. During the summer of 2003, Michael was an intern at The Toledo Blade, Toledo’s daily newspaper, where he was assigned primarily (and gratefully) to the county fair beat. Michael was born and raised in North Haven, Connecticut, and in addition to all forms of artistic expression, his interests include Asian cuisine, national politics, beer, and the Boston Red Sox.

Laura Massey is interning at CNY Jazz Central, the largest presenter of jazz in Central New York, and has taken on the responsibilities of communication manager. Previously, she has worked as entertainment editor for Planet Blacksburg, an online news publication. During the summer of 2007, Massey worked with a professor and six fellow students to write and publish an oral history of the events of April 16, 2007 on her Blacksburg campus titled “April 16th: Virginia Tech Remembers,” after which sheinterned for The Washington Post Writers Group.

Massey graduated cum laude from Virginia Tech in 2008, double majoring in communication and interdisciplinary studies, with minors in English literature and music performance

Massey’s love of music is the foundation of her career aspirations, and has manifested in such activities as founding and directing a vocal jazz ensemble.

Patricio has been influenced by the lives of extraordinary personalities such as Baudelaire, Borges, and Schopenhauer. The latter, who was floating barely alive in a fishbowl atop a dilapidated piano for two months, provided a great source of creative inspiration. Schopenhauer was the reason why Patricio applied for an internship at the Chinese art gallery Bamboo Lane. Watching Schopenhauer take his last few laps around his bowl, Patricio first dreamed up turning his play The Converts, about two Mormon missionaries in LA, into a comedic novel. Schopenhauer was not, however, responsible for Patricio hosting late night art events at his apartment in Echo Park: he was dead by then. After being awarded a poetry prize from the Cal State LA Spanish Student Association, co-producing El Amanecer, an independent Colombian feature film, and being quoted as “Don Patricio” in reference to a poem he submitted to Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, he has driven to Syracuse from LA in search of more writing opportunities—and maybe even another goldfish.
Patricio’s Web site is: http://www.freewebs.com/pxms

Tony is a New York City-based journalist who has been yearning for a more countrified existence for some time now. His 2008 Tony Awards prediction piece for Edge Publications forecasted Broadway’s biggest night with a staggering 54% accuracy. Tony also reported on outer borough Gay Pride celebrations for The Village Voice’s Queer Issue. 2008 was also marred by a national arts scandal, but he’ll admit he was secretly thrilled to land on Page Six. In retrospect, he can only quote Madonna’s notorious 1985 New York Post headline in the wake of her image surfacing in both Penthouse and Playboy: “I’m not ashamed.”

Isaac has been in the book business for the last seven years. His home is in Gambier, Ohio, where he attended Kenyon College, earning a B.A. in Humanities focusing on art, lit, and pop culture since 1950. At UofL, he was active in the creative writing program and maintained a fiction workshop for three years. While at Kenyon, he co-edited the freshman lit magazine Ground Zero. Isaac also writes short fiction. Between colleges, Isaac lived in Baltimore and learned how to really inhabit and fall in love with a city. He has also traveled considerably in the US and spent six weeks in Europe seeing art, architecture, beaches, parks, and a solar eclipse after missing the train out of Budapest. Isaac’s Web site, where he blogs about the visual ecosystem and is compiling a photo essay on textuality titled “Paperreal,” is: www.VisCulture.com.

Bruce is from Atlanta, GA. where his family has lived for generations. He was most recently the program director for the Interior Design Program at Westwood College in Atlanta. Bruce managed one of the country’s first animation art galleries, was a partner in a design firm, and developed his own fashion label. He also paints multimedia works on canvas, and has been involved in theater and performance art. Bruce graduated from the University of Georgia with a B.F.A in Art/Interior Design... a long time ago. He is trying hard to prove that 40 is the new 25.