Hi. I’m LeeAnne.
At various points in my life, I wanted to be: an astronaut, an undercover police officer, an art director, a cupcake baker, a young-adult novelist, a professional organizer, the person who selects music for movies, and a maker of Hallmark cards. Pretty much everything. So I became a journalist—and now I write about everything.
I kicked off my professional career at Diablo, a lifestyle magazine covering the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay, rising from editorial intern to research editor to managing editor over 12 years. I left in 2014, after the birth of my first daughter, to become a freelance writer and editor, with work appearing in Diablo, Via, Rhapsody, Sacramento, Napa Sonoma, Crochet Today, and APU Life magazines. In 2018, I returned to full-time work as the managing editor of Via, a travel magazine produced by AAA for 3.8 million readers in nine Western states. Today, I am freelancing again, adding Afar, Apartment Therapy's Cubby, Hemispheres, LinkedIn, Saint Mary's College of California, and the San Francisco Business Times, plus several cookbook titles for Callisto Media and several visitors' guides for Wanderlust Content Studio, to my writing and editing portfolio.
When it comes to writing, I’m known for my versatility, but my favorite assignments are those that align with my personal interests, such as interviewing Food Network star Ayesha Curry and Game of Thrones linguist David Peterson, perfecting my slice and dice in a knife skills class, and connecting every East Bay–bred television actor to Andy Samberg in six degrees or less. I also greatly welcome deep dives into new-to-me worlds, like hanging out in the (mildly creepy) office of a museum taxidermist, pelting rotten tomatoes at hundreds of strangers in a Tomato Battle, and facing my fear of spiders on a Tarantula Trek.
As an editor, I love a challenge: turning “meh” drafts into “wow” stories, developing unique and multifaceted features (like Via's Food Fight), and tackling copyfitting and caption writing with neurotic perfectionism. I've solved not one but two 100-piece production-editing puzzles: 100 Best Travel Ideas in the West and 100 Best Bites. And, my background in graphic design gives me a great eye for composition and consistency.
Outside of work, I enjoy watching movies in the theater, playing complicated board games, trying new restaurants and recipes, wearing obnoxiously printed socks, road-tripping around the western United States, buying copious amounts of scrapbooking supplies (and sometimes scrapbooking), and hanging with my husband and our two awesome daughters.