Julia Van Develder
Long-time resident of the Hudson Valley, Julia Van Develder began working in the Office of College Relations at Vassar College in 1990 as a staff writer and was the editorial director from 1998 until 2008 when she left to launch Red Dog Writers Group. At Vassar, she was responsible for establishing and maintaining the college’s editorial style, writing/editing numerous college publications, collaborating with designers and photographers, supervising staff and student writers, art directing photo and video shoots, initiating and implementing focus groups and readership surveys, managing special projects, and creating content for numerous feature websites.
Van Develder is also a poet, an essayist, and a screenwriter. Her script THE ESCAPE ARTIST won the Final Draft 2005 International Screenwriting Competition and is currently optioned. Her first script, STAYING AFLOAT, is also optioned and looks promising for production in 2009.
Van Develder has a few degrees (Oberlin College, 1974; Teachers College, Columbia, 1975), four grown kids, one grandkid (who has his own YouTube site: http://www.YouTube.com/babybenito), and two labradoodles.
Jim Andrews
Originally from Arkansas, Jim Andrews has 20 years of book and magazine experience, most recently as editor of New York House magazine. Under his direction, House evolved from a real estate showcase into an influential publication focusing on green, sustainable building design and Smart Growth development in the Hudson Valley.
Prior to his position at House, Andrews was the managing editor of Poets & Writers Magazine in New York City. During his six years there, he oversaw all text and photos of this monthly magazine and headed its redesign, a year-long project completed in 2002.
Other New York credentials include posts at English Education, the national research journal of Teachers College, Columbia University (where Andrews earned his MA in 1997), and at G.P. Putnam’s Sons, where he was assistant to the managing editor and worked on books by Charles Kuralt, Carl Hiaasen, Tom Clancy, and others.
Andrews and his daughter, Sophie, live in Barrytown, NY.
Jim Guilianelli
Jim Guilianelli has been a writer and editor at IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY, for 25 years. Currently, he is the executive editor of the IBM z/OS Hot Topics magazine, a biennial publication for mainframe programmers and aficionados throughout the computer industry. Recently, the magazine won two awards from the Society for Technical Communications for technical excellence. Visit the z/OS Hot Topics website.
Originally from Erie, PA, Guilianelli holds a BA in English from Northwestern University and an MA in English and Linguistics from Indiana University. He is a resident of the beautiful Hudson Valley where he spends his free time hiking its trails and making numerous excursions to NYC for the opera and other cultural events.
Lorrie Klosterman
Lorrie Klosterman writes and teaches about a variety of topics, especially the biological and environmental sciences, health, and nature. She earned a BS in zoology at Oregon State University and a PhD in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship to fund graduate research. She pursued postdoctoral training in cell biology, physiology, and endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, University of Alberta (as a NATO scholar), and Boston University.
Klosterman moved to the Hudson Valley in 1988 and established a writing career focusing on science and the environment, including for the biomedical arena (journal articles, slide presentations, video scripts) and for popular journalism. She has written numerous articles for House magazine and Chronogram magazine (for which she has been Whole Living editor for four years), and over a dozen science and health books for young readers (grades 3-12) for Marshall Cavendish. She has also enjoyed teaching a host of biological science courses as an adjunct at Boston University, Marist College, Mount Saint Mary College, Vassar College, and SUNY New Paltz.
Klosterman’s greatest passion is the wondrous world of nature, from its grandest viewscapes to its tiniest details. She is an animal advocate, watercolorist, sometime actress, aspiring scriptwriter, and a proud mother.