Attendees

When you RSVP, your bio and photo will appear on this page.
If you have a photo you prefer, you can send it to aubrey (at) broadsummit (dot) com.

This is Heather Champ. Heather likes film cameras, chihuahuas and a good glass of Riesling. Heather dislikes self-entitlement, wet hair, and raw fish.

Heather is very much enamoured with personal publishing on the web, having launched her first home page in ‘94 while working at Princeton University. Previously, she curated the Mirror Project and co-founded JPG Magazine with her husband, Derek Powazek. An award winning web designer, Heather abandoned her career as a pixel pusher to join the Flickr team at Yahoo! as Community Manager in May 2005. At the end of the day, she’d much rather be outside taking photos.

This is Evany Thomas. She likes baby hippos; hot-hot baths; and the sun, shining on her face. She dislikes tailgaters; chicken-themed gifts; and the sun, shining on her face.

Evany Thomas is the author of The Secret Language of Sleep: A Couple’s Guide to the Thirty-Nine Positions (described as “hugely entertaining and smart” by O Magazine). Her work has been featured in print publications (including McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Fray, Horses for Juniors), on websites (Sundance Film Festival, Television Without Pity, The Morning News), and in anthologies (Welcome to Wisteria Lane, The Ex-Files). KUOW, Playboy Radio, and Michigan’s Mix106 Morning Madhouse have all featured Evany as a guest on their shows, and she has educated audiences far (Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival, the NYC comedy reading series
How to Kick People) and wide (San Francisco’s NoisePop Festival, McSweeney’s The World Explained show) about the true meaning of a person’s chosen sleeping position. Evany lives in El Cerrito with her baby, boyfriend, cat, dog, and crabby-crabby turtle.

This is Asha Dornfest. She likes mangoes, earlobes and enthusiasm. She dislikes peer pressure, flaccid handshakes, and the word “bleat.” Asha is the founder of Parent Hacks, a site that has been described as “MacGyver meets parenting.”

This is Kelly Wilkinson. She likes growing vegetables, traveling by train and the smell of new tennis balls. She dislikes mysterious hair in sinks, rude people and steamed artichokes.

Kelly’s professional work straddles craftiness and journalism. Your can hear her reporting and anchoring on NPR and the San Francisco NPR affiliate, KQED. She also writes a craft column for the Washington Post, and is developing a craft show for public radio. Her projects have been featured in major websites and national magazines.

Kelly blogs at Make Grow Gather.

This is Chris Jordan. She likes hummus, crisp white bed linens, and hand sanitizing gel. She dislikes ironing, perfume samples in magazines and rude people.

Chris is a writer who recently moved from the frigid tundra of New England to Austin, TX. She has more children than you can count on one hand and yes, she finally figured out what causes it. Previously she wrote for BlogHer, AOL, and Babble. She currently writes for Work It, Mom and Handipoints. Her personal blog, Notes from the Trenches, is updated almost daily.

This is Jean Aw. She likes stunning design, gadgets and champagne. She dislikes bad design, negativity and boredom.

* JEAN AW Founder of NOTCOT: Concept, Content & Creative, Editor-In-Chief of the NotEmpire*. . . Design Addict + UX Designer + Shopaholic + Tech Connoisseur + Design Writer + World Traveler *NotEmpire = not an empire, composed of NOTCOT.com, NOTCOT.org, NotCouture.com, and Liqurious.com

This is Mimi Smartypants. She likes Earl Grey, public transportation and puppets of all kinds. She dislikes baseball, okra and braggarts.

Mimi Smartypants is the nom de Internet of a Chicago writer and editor. Professionally, she is the managing editor for several scientific and medical journals. Nonprofessionally, she keeps her diary online at mimismartypants.com and has done so since 1999. Parts of that diary were published, through no fault of her own, as The World According to Mimi Smartypants (HarperCollins).

This is Sarah James. She likes carousels, ocean breezes on her face and road trips. She dislikes eggplant, arguing for the sake of argument and potty training.

An avid freelance writer and blogger, Sarah James can be found regularly contributing her musings on parenting, fashion, beauty and green living at Parentdish, Work It Mom, Mopshots and Brita’s FilterForGood website. Since 2005, Sarah has been entertaining readers with her humorous outlook on life at her blog Whoorl, as well as authoring the popular beauty website Hair Thursday. Her personal blogs have been featured in The New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Nightline and the Rachael Ray Show.

This is Megan Reardon. She likes hoppy beer, poofy skirts and perfect spheres. She dislikes run down batteries, keys that stick and orange zest.

Megan Reardon documents her domestic failings at notmartha.org.

This is Gabrielle Blair. She likes really good ideas, pear Jelly Bellies and cities. She dislikes pain, all olives expect California Black and poorly executed pedicures.

Gabrielle Blair is a founder of Kirtsy, designer and mother of five. Her blog Design Mom was named a Top Parenting Blog by The Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple Magazine.

This is Laurie Smithwick. She likes french fries, cooking for people older than 7 and jumping into cold water without feeling it first. She dislikes sweets in her entrées, wet hands (her own) and being the first to leave.

Laurie is a founder of Kirtsy who occasionally blogs at Upside Up, and runs LEAP Design, a can-do graphic and web design studio in North Carolina. She was nominated for a Grammy award in 1998. She didn’t win, but she got to wear an awesome purple velvet dress that made her feel real girly.

This is Melissa Summers. Melissa likes a good eyebrow shaping, her 50mm lens and the smell of the car on the way home from a day at the pool. Melissa dislikes whining, squirrels and green beans

Melissa Summers is a writer living just outside Detroit with her robotic husband Logan and her two kids, Max and Madison. She has been featured in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Detroit News, among others. Her website, Suburban Bliss, has been around since 2003 and is updated almost always every day.

This is Jordan Ferney. Jordan likes picnics, balloons and Parisian macaroons. Jordan dislikes long lines, low quality ice cream and stubbing her toe.

Jordan Ferney is a San Francisco based event planner and has worked for several years for former San Francisco Mayor, Willie Brown and the party planner Stanlee Gatti. She enjoys spending time printing on her 2,000 pound letterpress and blogs daily at Oh Happy Day. Jordan lives on Nob Hill with her husband Paul and her son Moses.

This is Holly Burns. Holly likes gold shoes, vintage globes, and a nice glass of champagne. Or even a not-so-nice glass of champagne. She isn’t fussy.

Holly dislikes inappropriate use of the apostrophe, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, and people who claim not to shop at TJ Maxx even when you’ve seen them there. Several times, actually.

Holly Burns is a writer and editor for a travel company in San Francisco, where she lives with her almost-husband and two large cats. She blogs at Nothing But Bonfires. Writing almost-husband just then totally gave her a thrill.

This is Jenny Lawson. She likes Chamboard slushies, Alan Rickman and Victorian bustles. She dislikes when you leave a towel in the washer too long but you don’t think it’s mildewed because it smells only slightly odd and so you dry it and it smells fine when it comes out of the dryer but later when you wash your face it gets wet and smells like a wet dog that’s been dead a bit and now your face smells just like that. Wow. That was a really long one. Can I just do one?

(Yes Jenny, yes you may.)

Jenny has personal problems but in spite of herself she has managed to keep up with several surprisingly readable blogs/columns. Her family pretends they don’t exist.

http://thebloggess.com/
http://askthebloggess.pnn.com/13150-the-front-page
http://www.edenfantasys.com/sexis/adult-humor/bloggess-irony-71691/
http://blogs.chron.com/goodmombadmom/

This is Gwen Bell. She likes salsa dancing, stage diving at karaoke and clothing swaps. She dislikes cheap tequila, British winters and raw eggplant.

Gwen recently taught a course on Social Media at The University of Colorado – Boulder. She’s a partner at Kirtsy. Her recently published (along with fellow entrepreneur Chris Guillebeau) Unconventional Guide to the Social Web is a fabulous airplane read.

This is Zan McQuade. She likes malted milkshakes, wool blankets, the sound a needle makes when it reaches the end of the record. She dislikes humidity, stubbornness, static electricity.

Zan McQuade is an editor, writer, photographer, and occasional translator of Latvian fiction. She currently lives in New York City and blogs at A Cup Of Tea & A Wheat Penny.

This is Eden Kennedy. Eden likes kettle corn, photography books on Christmas morning, and men who giggle. She dislikes sauerkraut, misogyny, and cold feet.

Eden’s formidable presence can be felt throughout many of the Internet’s most vernacular web sites, including fussy.org, yogabeans.com, nablopomo.com, and lets-panic.com (with Alice Bradley). Eden is a former editor and bookseller. She used to be a cat person but is now a dog person.

This is Alice Bradley. Alice likes lemons, slapstick and her dog’s velvety ears. She dislikes whistling, weak coffee and sand in her shorts.

Alice Bradley is a writer. She has written for many journals, magazines, and anthologies. In addition to Finslippy, she is the co-creator of Let’s Panic About Babies, which she writes with the brilliant Eden Marriott Kennedy.

Kristin Darguzas is a digital media advertising executive, freelance blogger, and no- longer single Mama of a pretty wicked 4-year-old sidekick.

Kristin writes regularly at Work It, Mom! Bodies in Motivation, and Better Now. Previous web appearances include stints at ParentDish, That’s Fit, and Literary Mama.

Kristin was profiled in the 2007 book Blogging Superheroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers. She’s still not sure why, but she’ll take it.

Susan Wagner is a freelance writer and professional blogger; she writes about fashion and parenting and how the two are absolutely not mutually exclusive pursuits.

This is Dorothy McGivney. She likes travel, broads and summits. She dislikes subway delays, perished produce and creepy seatmates.

Dorothy McGivney started jauntsetter after leaving Google, where she worked for almost six years. After spending the better part of a year visiting destinations like Argentina, Japan, India, Nepal, Thailand and Cambodia, she decided to turn her online experience and passion for travel into jauntsetter.

This is Rebecca Woolf. She likes goat cheese, kindness and vintage hats. She dislikes red meat, meanness and trucker caps.

Here is Rebecca’s professional bio:
Author of Rockabye: From Wild to Child, Rebecca Woolf has been working as freelance writer since the age of sixteen. She blogs at Girl’s Gone Child and Babble.com’s Straight From the Bottle and is a panelist on Momversation.com.

Currently trying with all her might to sell a television pilot, Rebecca has also authored one short film, dozens of articles, essays and short stories for web and print and many unpublished works of Fiction.

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two small children, Archer and Fable.

For more… http://rebeccawoolf.com

This is Maggie Mason. She likes tap dancers, writing longhand, and singing with the radio. She dislikes tupperware with old food inside, dark and unfamiliar rooms, and surgery stories.

Here’s her professional bio:

Maggie Mason is the author of No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for your blog, award-winning publisher, and a Twitter power user (@Maggie). Her personal blog, Mighty Girl; was recently nominated for a SxSW Lifetime Achievement Weblog Award, and this year she was named one of Silicon Valley’s Top 50 Influencers by Now Public. She pioneered the shopping blog space with Mighty Goods, one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Cool Sites, which was also named best shopping site by both Forbes and BusinessWeek. She has since launched a network of popular shopping sites that includes Mighty Haus and Mighty Junior. She’s also an advisor to Plinky, a writing tool for bloggers.

This is Aubrey Sabala. She likes warm grilled cheese sandwiches, sundresses, and good lyrics. She dislikes waiting, passive-aggression, and sand in the sheets.

Here’s her professional bio:

Aubrey Sabala is the Marketing Manager for Digg, where she leads all of their marketing initiatives including organizing events for thousands of attendees. She was a Senior Consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, held various roles during her nearly five years at Google, and was an Online Marketing Manager at Ask.com. She got her start as a freelance writer, and has written about everything from relationships to RAM, fashion to food.

This is Helen Jane Hearn. She likes cheese, bocce, and morning naps. She dislikes ball point pens, the word Blouse, and beer flavored with something other than beer flavor.

Helen Jane Hearn is the founder of Cheesewhizzes, a nationwide wine and cheese club based in California’s Napa Valley. She is also the owner of Maplevine, a web design company and consultancy that specializes in helping corporations differentiate their brands in the social media space.

This is Laura Mayes. She likes New York, design magazines, and carbs. She dislikes sporks, queues, and people who refuse to capitalize anything.

Laura Mayes is an Emmy-winning writer who joined two friends she met through design blogs to start kirtsy.com, a user-generated content aggregator for online news from 30 editors and an awesome community. Kirtsy also created and hosts the Mom 2.0 Summit in February and has launched a nationwide “Hands-On Social Media” program to educate women about social media. Kirtsy is releasing a book, Kirtsy Takes a Bow: A Celebration of Women’s Online Favorites in October.