Meet Our New Bloggers

Welcome to our new Patch bloggers who started posting earlier this month! We're still looking for more to join the site. Two weeks ago, Shoreline Patch launched our new Local Voices section. Every day, we've been posting blog items from Shoreline citizens writing about a variety of local topics.

The number of bloggers on the site continues to grow. I'd like to introduce the newest ones to you, and re-acquaint you with the others as well:

Janet Way: Janet, an environmental and preservation activist who served on the Shoreline City Council from 2005-2009, edits the Of Paramount Importance Blog and will share her thoughts on the environment, local politics and preservation issues on Patch. She is a founding member of Paramount Park Neighborhood Group, Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, South Woods Preservation Group and other groups  She has run an arts business for 30 years as well. She  lives in Shoreline with her husband of 33 years, Alan Worthington and has two grown sons, Travis and Spencer. 

Sample post:

Monica McDowell. Monica is an author, ordained minister and self-described energy healer who blogs for Patch about how to heal oneself. She believes in understanding and detaching yourself from emotions.. She is the author of You are Light: 8 Words Reveal Your Truest Self (O-Books, 2011), a healing meditation workbook showing readers how to have and live with all the love, joy, peace and security they desire, as well as, My Karma Ran Over My Dogma:  Lessons Learned by a Whistle-Blowing Minister Turned Mystic, (2007), a humorous narrative of her spiritual journey into life-changing mysticism and a luminous spirituality during the years that led to a precedent-setting federal court ruling establishing her as the first ordained minister to be granted civil rights in the United States. Monica earned her Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary with an emphasis in spiritual care and counseling, and offers private sessions as well as workshops, classes, and retreats for budding mystics and emergent healers in Seattle and the greater Pacific Northwest region.

Sample post:

L. Brooks Baldwin. Brooks is a trained collaborative attorney and mediator based in Lake Forest Park blogs for Patch about her approach to family law that attempts to engage former partners in a process to reaching resolution in a respectful and dignified way without resorting to often devastating impacts of litigation.

Brooks also has served as facilitator of the Beyond Divorce Workshop and Support Group at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle.  She is also a commissioned Stephen Minister, trained and dedicated to coming alongside and supporting congregants and members of the community who are experiencing crisis.

Sample post:

Wendy DiPeso. Wendy, who blogs for Patch about environmental issues and green business and home practices, is Chair of the Shoreline Green Business Program a program of the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce. She served 3 years in a leadership role with the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce as Vice President, President and Past President. Wendy currently serves on the Board for Shoreline Solar Project. From the spring of 2008 until the summer of 2010 she served on the Economic Development Advisory Committee for the City of Shoreline.

Wendy also has an interest in education and loves working with children. For many years she volunteered in youth education departments for various churches. Wendy enjoys gardening, writing, and music but most of all spending time with her children and granddaughter.

Sample post:

Roberta Ruark; Roberta, an English teacher at Shorecrest High School, blogs for Patch about film. She likes to teach, garden, read, walk, bicycle, shop, sew, and relax in Shoreline, with her husband and two old dogs. Her filmmaker daughter is graduating from Mt. Holyoke College this spring.

Sample post:

Thanks to the roster above, Shoreline-Lake Forest Park Patch has a great mix of local bloggers up and running. Even so, I'm always on the look out for more local voices. Have an area or topic you'd like to blog about? Feel free to email me at tony.dondero@patch.com. I'd love to hear from you!  

The bloggers views are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or Patch.