The Crew
Who the hell is this bunch of misfits that runs this so-called magazine? Just who do you think you are trying to tell us what’s important in the world? Well, “world” is right, because Blast has two Bureaus outside Boston and more than 100 contributors on three continents.
Here’s who you can blame — or pitch stories to if you’re a publicist, cause we know this page is the most important thing on the site as far as you’re concerned.
Blast Boston
John M. Guilfoil — Editor-in-chief
John and Mario in Hollywood The head-shot. (Blast staff photo/Aram Boghosian)
He blogs at his personal page, PRrag, and he Tweets, and he’s on Facebook.
John writes for The Boston Globe, covering a healthy mixture of breaking news and business/tech. He’s a 2007 Northeastern University grad and is doing the grad school thing at Emerson College.
The old man of the group, John is 25.
John attends E3 every year in Los Angeles and writes the occasional video game review.
Feel free to email him about advertising, business matters, press/media inquiries about Blast and anything not specifically covered by another editor.
Elizabeth Raftery — Managing editor for features
A liz headshot. We work hard here at Blast.
She’s a real hotshot.
Liz is an original Blaster, helping in 2006 to get the first issue off the ground. Her main area of expertise is music. She’s also responsible for anything going on in New York. So email her about your band playing a gig in NYC.
Brooklynne Peters — Entertainment Editor
Brooklynne does music, movies, TV, and pop culture Brooklynne Disneyfied
She’s from Arizona and loves dogs!
Email her about interviews, reviews, movie screenings, and juicy gossip.
Marc Normandin — Games editor
Marc dresses down one of his reviewers for writing a poor article. Marc edits a junior reporter.
Marc is a 2008 graduate of Merrimack College.
He’s responsible for a healthy beefing up of Blast Games. He even started a separate games blog, Chibi Gamer. Email him for all things related to games.
Erica Marcus — Life editor
Erica is a graduate student at Emerson College Erica tries to decipher an obscure news story.
A 2007 University of New Hampshire graduate, Erica is also doing the journalism grad program at Emerson.
She enjoys wine, taking pictures, and long walks on the beach.
You can email her about any of the topics in the Life section.
Michael Kaufmann — Sci/Tech editor
We’re still working up what we want to say about Michael Kaufmann, but you should def email him about health, science, technology, gadgets, etc.
Boston’s Online Magazine
Staff in Boston
Mark Baard is a renown Boston technology writer who recently started an alt-tech blog at Blast.
Eddie Makuch is the Blast Gaming News Director, responsible for the day-to-day breaking news in the multimillion-dollar video game industry.
Megan Vick is the junior editor for music, reporting to Brooklynne.
Emma Rose Johnson and Ned Prickett are Blast movie critics.
Ashley Dean writes the Sky celeb gossip blog.
Other staffers: Krystal Beaulieu, Britt Braudo, Christine Cassis, Sarah Coughlin, Jess d’Arbonne, Farah Fard, Lindsey Ferris, Rick Fisk, Gina Fraumeni, Meghan Gargan, Anthony Geehan, Joe Godlewsky, Sarah Gordon, Stephen Greenwell, Logan Greiner, Chrisanne Grise, Roger Gude, Allison Hughes, Carly Rose Jackson, Tanya de Jesus, Michael Kaufmann, Ben Lindbergh, Tara Lira, Torrey Meeks, Lindsay Milgroom, Bill Palmer, Mike Preble, Adam Sell, David Smail, Claude Strayer, Melissa Unger and Jill Vallecorsa
BlastWest
Conception Allen — West Coast Bureau Chief
Connie covers television and all things Hollywood. Connie reports to Brooklynne in Boston
She lives in San Diego, where there are a surprising amount of Boston ex-pats.
She loves her television and does some our hot interviews.
You can email her about stuff going on over there in Cali.
BlastWest Staff
BlastWest staffers report to the section editors they write for
Bradley Ouellette and Chase Gharrity are our links to video games in the west. Brad lives in Seattle. He’s been with Blast since the beginning but took a reduced role since he got a wicked awesome job at Microsoft as a software engineer. He still covers PAX and E3 and reviews games, peripherals and computer hardware. Chase is simply “the man” as Marc puts it.
Meg Queally is another former Bostonian who settled on the Left. She reviews PC games and writes lifestyle stories.
Lauren McCombs lives in San Diego and writes political thought pieces, including the Power Behind Closed Doors column.
Jessica Elford and Pasquale Augustine are based in La Jolla, Calif., and contribute to Power Behind Closed Doors.
Sarah Coughlin and Jess d’Arbonne are entertainment staffers reporting from Denver.
Blast New York
New York Staff
Liz Raftery lives in New York and heads up all news operations coming out of that other city in the Northeast besides Boston. From her base in Brooklyn, she covers the hottest musical acts, often right before they arrive in Boston.
Alana Levinson is an Emerson College grad living in New York. She is a general assignment reporter.
Bessie King has been with Blast since the beginning. The former entertainment and culture/life editor is a graduate journalism student at the Columbia University.
Kelly Bodami is a former entertainment editor at Blast.
Trevor Timm writes the PSA Blog for Blast.
Samantha Lavine is a general assignment reporter in New York.
CarlyErin O’Neil is a traveling model who writes about her worldwide adventures for Blast.
Elsewhere
Gabriella von Rosen is our correspondent in Miami.
Joe Sinicki is a past tech/games editor living in Orlando.
Sarah Mullins is The Diva of Driving, living in and reporting from Orlando.
Sachin Seth is a Blast staff writer and world news reporter in Toronto. Former culture editor Dan Peleschuk is there also, as a grad student.
Leysha Penfold reports from Sydney, Australia. Liz Rennie from Brisbane.
Manuel Uribe is an entertainment correspondent reporting from Dallas.
Chris DeMatteo is a sports and pop culture reporter in Milwaukee.
Liz McClendon reports on entertainment and Twilight from Virginia Beach, Va. She recently hit up TwiCon in Dallas.
Luna Moltedo reports from Rome.
