I’m a state and local government reporter covering New York City metro and national breaking news, politics and policy at Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek. In 2012, I won the Martha Coman Award for Best New Journalist from the Newswomen’s Club of New York and the Feddie Award from the National Press Foundation. I’ve datelined an article from Timbuktu, broke the story of Goldman Sachs’ access to swine flu vaccine when even pregnant women were empty handed, and reported on labor protests from the streets of Madison and Lansing and New York’s legalization of gay marriage from the Senate floor. My first trip to Mississippi was spent with white-haired ladies who picket the state’s sole abortion clinic. I was that BusinessWeek employee who raised her hand.
Now a Brooklyn transplant, I was born on a blueberry farm in Maine and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where I focused on magazine writing, and Boston College.
I was named after the main character of J.D. Salinger’s short story, “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor,” that later became one of Nine Stories. It was first published in The New Yorker in 1950, and can be viewed here. It begins: “Just recently, by air mail, I received an invitation to a wedding that will take place in England on April 18th.” My birthday is April 18th. My parents claim they weren’t aware of this coincidence. I am skeptical.