Hi, I'm Lauren.

I'm a writer and editor based in Burlington, Vermont, specializing in the areas of food, craft beer, nutrition, and preventive health. I work as an editor on the content licensing team at Meredith Corporation, and previously worked in a variety of editorial positions in the health and food space.

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WRITING

I prefer clear, concise, and conversational. I'll use a fancy word now and then but am trained in health literacy and can just as easily write to a 6th grade reading level.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

I work with authors to hone their voice and vision so as to create the best experience for their audience.

COPY EDITING

I know the rules but also know when to let authors break them. I've worked with Chicago, AP, APA, and AMA. I can swing both ways with the Oxford comma (but strongly encourage it!).

My work

Select freelance projects

Edible San Diego

I began freelancing for Edible San Diego for their inaugural issue and contributed regularly until I moved away from San Diego in 2015. From 2009 - 2013 I served as the managing editor of the publication.

San Diego Uptown News

I wrote a bi-weekly column called Hoptown Girl for SD Uptown News in 2010 and 2011 that focused on craft beer brewed and served in San Diego County. All photos accompanying the stories were original.

San Diego News Network

I wrote a series of 15 pieces as a bi-weekly "In Season" column for the now-shuttered SDNN.com, focusing on one in-season fruit or vegetable each week. Each piece discussed what to look for when shopping for the food, how to store, cook, and prepare it, and what the nutritional value was. All photographs were original, and recipes were a combination of original and credited. Topics included avocados, fennel, mushrooms, beets, pomegranates, persimmons, and my all-time favorite, figs.

Serious Eats

I have contributed a few craft-beer-related pieces to the website SeriousEats.com. In 2016, I represented Burlington, Vermont in the Great American Beer Brawl, with my piece on why Burlington deserves to be considered the best beer city in the U.S. I also put together a Gift Guide: For Beer Lovers slideshow for the 2010 holiday season and a San Diego Beer Week highlights slideshow for the November 2011 San Diego Beer Week.

 

Experience

Staff Positions:

Education:

  • University of San Diego Extension, Copyediting Certficate, 2011-2012
  • University of Virginia, B.A., English and Anthropology. Charlottesville, Virginia; 1999-2003

About


I'm New York born, Jersey raised, Virginia schooled. I went to a science and technology high school only to become an English major in college. I drove cross country in a VW convertible, stopped to play catch on the Field of Dreams and ride a mule into the Grand Canyon, then found a tiny cottage to live in by the San Diego sea. After a few months of playing in the surf and pretending to know how to sail, I got serious and launched a career writing and editing, mostly about food, craft beer, and health. Most recently, that career has taken me to Burlington, Vermont, where I fall in love with the mountains daily. 

 

What you won’t find on my resume: I smoke a mean pork shoulder and brew a pretty decent IPA. I’ve traveled to 41 states and have my eye on the remaining 9. I helped publicize National High Five Day in its early years. I'm an amateur ceramicist, an avid hiker, and a champion light packer. My not-so-secret goal in life is to get a dish I invent put on a restaurant menu, ideally with a cheezy pun for a name.

 

I’m married to Conor Lastowka. You might know him for being funny. We spent many years in a really old house with a tiny kitchen that we often cooked for way too many people in. We have a cat with no tail who has flown across the country three times (he's a little neurotic these days). And the last name? It’s pronounced Luh-stow-ka.