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
Our young country is an experiment, and we are all founders, responsible for its direction and stewardship. What do we want the next 250 years to be?
A young American asks: Should I have stayed in my hometown? What does it mean to be part of a community, and where do we go from here?
Seth D. Kaplan’s book “Fragile Neighborhoods” is a must-read book for anyone who wants to understand how to repair our social fabric and build resilient communities.
What do we owe each other? And how do we build a country where intergenerational wealth isn’t measured in gold and property, but in a society that cares for its most vulnerable? We owe an existential debt to the generations that came before us. What will we do with that inheritance?
How is social media affecting our “locus of control,” especially for teen girls? Academic and moral theorist Jonathan Haidt rings the alarm bell about how digital natives are failing to thrive, and Editor-in-Chief Heather Shayne Blakeslee makes the case that Gen X just might save us.
Everyone thinks that they're on the moral high ground. But what if, from that perch, instead of using it to our advantage in a fight, we simply seek what’s out there? How do organizations such a Heterodox Academy help us to disagree better?
In reflecting on the war in Ukraine, a call for Americans to come together and take the wheel of their own country. Politics isn’t religion, but it’s become like a religion for many. How do we ditch dogma and come together?
by Heather Shayne Blakeslee
A note on the Fall 2020 issue, Fight/Flight/Tend & Befriend, from our Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
by Walter Foley and Heather Shayne Blakeslee
Are we capable of stopping the cycle of online outrage?
by Heather Shayne Blakeslee
Imagine that after a long time away, you’ve returned home in winter, opened the door…
A letter launching The RQ Review from Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Heather Shayne Blakeslee
Clarissa F. Griebel is director of the Governor’s Woods Foundation and managing editor of DelanceyPlace.com. She is also a Buchholz Fellow with the Committee of Seventy.
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
Christopher Spencer is an artist and a church restoration technician for Master Liturgical Designs. He is a graduate of the Lorenzo de' Medici art school in Florence, Italy, and holds an undergraduate degree in peace studies from Brandeis University. From 1996 to 1999, he was the second-fastest oyster shucker in the Boston area. Spencer has also been the head fencing coach at Haverford College for the past thirteen years.
Ginger Rudolph is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied communications and journalism at Community College of Philadelphia and art history at Temple University. Rudolph is a curator, artist, and writer. She is also the founder and editor of HAHA Magazine (High on Art, Heavy on Antics), an arts journal with a focus on contemporary and street art. As her passion for the arts grew, she co-founded HAHA x Paradigm, a civic and social arts initiative located in Philadelphia. In her free time, she writes for arts and culture journals.
Website (coming soon) | www.GingerRudolph.com
Email | rudolph.ginger@gmail.com
Instagram | @popgeekout
Joshua Mehigan is the poetry editor of RQ. His first book, The Optimist (Ohio UP), was a finalist for a 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book, Accepting the Disaster (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), was cited in the TLS, New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere as a best book of 2015. Mehigan was an artist in residence at Northwestern University from 2017 to 2020. He has received fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Jared Michael Lowe is a lifestyle writer, communications strategist, and creative consultant. He’s led social media strategy and engagement for WHYY, the University of Pennsylvania, and a host of media, academic, and cultural arts organizations. His editorial work has appeared on NBC News and in Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, and Ebony magazine. He currently serves as the communications manager at the Sustainable Business Network.
Twitter | @jaredmichaelowe
Walter Foley is RQ’s managing editor, whose previous work includes copy editing Grid, Decibel, and Magnet magazines in Philadelphia. His main areas of interest include percussion and meditation.
Lauren Earline Leonard is an associate editor of RQ. She is a Philadelphia-based writer, director, and producer who founded Earlie Bird Productions in 2017. With EBP she co-wrote and directed V2: Creation Myth (February 2018) and Mother/Daughter (September 2018). Her original work, DREDx, premiered in 2019. Leonard holds a B.A. in theatre from Temple University.
Website | www.earliebirdproductions.com
Email | llearline@gmail.com
Diana Lu is a contributing food editor and the “Constellations” columnist for RQ. She has spent more than ten years in the nonprofit, public, media, and private sectors working on urban development issues including environmental justice, design-based manufacturing, and community and economic development. Lu’s work has appeared on WHYY, the CitiesSpeak blog for the National League of Cities, and in shows produced by the Asian Arts Initiative and FringeArts. She manages the Germantown Info Hub, a community-centered journalism project that shares information for and by Germantown residents. Lu holds a master’s in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Vassar College.
Email | diana.mt.lu@gmail.com
Twitter | @dianaluwho
Instagram | @dianaluwho