Employees of the Month

HANNAH LUCINDA SMITH

Hannah Lucinda Smith is a war reporter and photographer whose compulsion to travel to the world’s most hostile regions is probably related to growing up in a very boring small town in the British East Midlands. Since February, she’s been reporting from Syria on frequent trips across the border from her current home base in Turkey. During her time in the region, she has become an expert at crossing borders illegally, hung out with al Qaeda fighters, slept in caves, and downed many gallons of chai. “I tell the stories of the ordinary people I meet in conflict zones,” she has said of her work. “Ultimately the real story of war is the story of the people who are stuck in the middle of it through no fault of their own, and it is by spending time with them that you can get close to the truth of the situation.”

See AL QAEDA’S TEENAGE FAN CLUB

DAVID MEANS

David Means has published more than 50 stories in magazines ranging from Esquire to the New Yorker to Zoetrope while garnering all kinds of well-deserved accolades and awards for his work. One recent highlight of his career was the performance of his story “Michigan Death Trip” this summer at the Latitude Festival in England by WordTheatre, a troupe that includes actors from Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. The very same group will be performing the story of David’s that appears in this issue, “Instruction for Funeral,” in LA on October 13. If you’re in the area, we highly suggest you check that weirdness out, and before that, read the aforementioned story—maybe you’ll even glean a few ideas to make your own funeral less boring.

See INSTRUCTIONS FOR FUNERAL

KEVIN SITES

War correspondent Kevin Sites’s first conflict zone was a low-rent, lakeside resort in Ohio on the Fourth of July. As a 16-year-old part-time photographer for his hometown newspaper, he was sent to take nice pictures of kids eating candy apples and folks watching fireworks. Instead, he found himself surrounded by six Hell’s Angels demanding the roll of film he had just shot of them. When he refused, they ripped open his camera and confiscated the film. In retaliation, he nudged one of their bikes with the bumper of his dad’s Buick, watched them go down like badass dominoes, and then flipped them the bird on his way home to have a bowl of Captain Crunch for dinner… Or so he wishes every night since. For this issue he took a hellish road trip through Afghanistan, hitting the same cities he first visited 12 years ago when the US started blowing the place apart. See SWIMMING WITH WARLORDS

PETER LARSON

Peter Larson is a 25-year-old Ohioan who normally shoots portraits of musicians. (He’d like everyone to know that he photographed Selena Gomez, but we could care less.) For this issue we had him follow our editor Wilbert L. Cooper through the junkyards and vacant houses of Cleveland. Will was there to report on the thriving scrapping economy that has exploded thanks to an astronomical global demand for metal and the repercussions of the housing crisis, which has led to thousands of buildings being left vacant and vulnerable to those who want to harvest their copper and steel. Thanks for helping Will out and taking such great photos of depressing shit, Peter. We hope your home city figures out how to get itself out of that economic hole it’s currently in. See SCRAP OR DIE

MIYAKO BELLIZZI

Miyako Bellizzi has been working freelance for us for two long years, lugging clothes to and from fashion shoots, styling models and other assorted weirdos, and completing many other thankless tasks. This fall, we finally realized how dumb we were not to have hired her full-time as an editorial assistant long ago. So we did. She’s been doing a great job at keeping the editors organized and sane, but she also ran off by herself and produced and styled a shoot of leggy babes that was so hot a staffer who shall remain unnamed was caught licking the print proofs of it in the bathroom. She also walks around every single day of the week with outfits featuring loads of tie-dye and marijuana leaves, forcing everyone else in the office to realize they dress like losers. Thanks, Miyako, and welcome aboard! See LEGS