Katharine Whittemore, Writer
Whittemore has written for the New York Times, Atlantic, Smithsonian, Salon.com, and more. She was the features editor at Wondertime magazine, and began her career at New England Monthly magazine. She writes a book review column for the Globe, where she’s covered non-fiction on everything from the Beatles to fracking to Shakespeare to refugees. In reporting this issue’s cover story, she was told that Debra Yang was earthy and razor-sharp. Whittemore agrees: “Our interview swam with such contrasts. One minute she’d describe the pressure of fighting potential terrorism in LA after 9/11. The next, she’d laugh about a conversation with her hairdresser about their respective childhood Christmas pageants: Yes, Debra got to play Mary and, yes, she’s full of grace.
Joshua Corbett, Photographer
Corbett was born in Alaska and raised in the snowy Chugach Mountains. He enjoys onesie snow suits, political intrigue, and good coffee. He has an MA in International Relations and has lived and worked in the Philippines, Mexico, Italy, United Kingdom, and Afghanistan. Clients include the New York Times, Newsweek, and Deutche-Press Agentur. Of his assignment to photograph Sam Gottstein ’15 for a piece on clerkships, he says: “I knew Sam from volunteer work he does, so I was excited. When we spoke about locations, I knew we had a winner with the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage. The totem poles bearing the blue with yellow stars of the Alaskan flag standing at the entrance are a great nod to Alaska while keeping the visual focus on Sam’s clerkships.”
Arthur E. Giron, Illustrator
Giron is a California-based artist/illustrator with sixteen years of experience working with a variety of publications. Ironically, he is colorblind but manages a limited palette to complement his unique style and conceptual illustrations. About his illustration for the solitary confinement story, “There Was No Day, No Night, Nothing to Mark the Time,” he says: “My initial concept was that of the viewer peering in but then the idea of an internal struggle became more of the focus. I’d honestly never given solitary confinement a lot of thought before. Then I realized that this was about someone being in a prison within a prison and that became key to the illustration.” His clients include Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Smithsonian, and Mother Jones.
Jessica Weiser,Photographer
Weiser is a Maine-based photographer who shoots for a variety of commercial and editorial clients. They include Cobb Hill by Rockport, Keds, Cosmopolitan, Northshore Magazine, Maine Home and Design, Natural Health, and Fitness. Her fascination with photography began when she was nine; she would take her parents’ film camera and force her siblings to model for her. “From the start, it was always people I was interested in capturing—expression, emotion, and movement,” she says. “My work is story and mood driven.” The evidence? Her portrait of Zachary Heiden ’02 for this issue’s solitary confinement article. In addition to photography, she loves traveling, interior design, antique stores, long drives blasting loud music, the ocean and desert, and her four cats.