Heather Shayne Blakeslee is the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of RQ. She’s an award-winning singer-songwriter, nonprofit executive, and storyteller with over 25 years of field experience in the arts, publishing, and environmental spheres. She believes in rebuilding the Fourth Estate with regionally-based Regenerative Media, and that art and beauty can help bring us together over our common humanity. Blakeslee is volunteer Arts Fellow and Board Member with FAIR, and also volunteers with the political depolarization organization Braver Angels. She is the founder of Red Pen Arts, a consultancy that offers support to social entrepreneurs and the arts and culture community.

In 2011, she was awarded a 40-under-40 award from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and a Philadelphia City Council “Next Generation of Rising Stars” in 2012. In 2014, she won Songwriter of the Year from the New Jersey Folk Festival, and Best Singer-Songwriter from the Elephant Talk Music Festival in 2015. When RQ launched in 2019 it was named a Best New Magazine by Library Journal. Blakeslee was a first-round grantee of the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University in 2022, and in 2024 was awarded Storyteller of the Year by The Philadelphia Citizen.

Email | heather@redpenarts.com

IG | @sweetbriarrose

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