About Us
Modern Farmer is the authoritative resource for today’s cutting-edge food producers and consumers: the farmers, wannabe farmers, chefs, and passionate home cooks who are influencing the way we eat right now. Blending hands-in-dirt service, soulful inspiration, and whip-smart reporting, Modern Farmer understands that a tomato is never just a tomato—it’s also a political, and deeply personal, statement about who we want to be and the world we hope to live in.
Want to pick up a copy of Modern Farmer? You can subscribe, order a single issue online, get our digital edition, or pick us up on a newsstand near you.
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Sarah Gray Miller
Editor-in-Chief
Sarah Gray Miller has served as the editor-in-chief of Country Living, O at Home, Budget Living, and Organic Style magazines. Under her leadership, Budget Living won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, and Country Living received its first-ever National Magazine Award nomination, also for General Excellence. Sarah Gray began her career at Garden Design and Saveur magazines
P.S. Sarah Gray had two pet goats, Randy and Nancy, when she was a kid in Mississippi.
Jim Schiekofer
Chief Revenue Officer
Jim Schiekofer has held top revenue and marketing positions at The Weather Channel, Trusted Media Brands, USA TODAY Sports, and Hearst Magazines. Jim has also helped develop and launch several digital video and mobile applications such as We Are The Hits, and Fanbreaks.
P.S. When Jim’s not on a baseball field, basketball court, or football field coaching, you can find him walking the farmers markets in Westchester, NY.
Maxine Davidowitz
Creative Director
Maxine Davidowitz is the former creative director for More, TV Guide, Parents, and Health magazines, as well as the former group creative director for Rodale's women's division, which included Organic Style, Prevention, and Organic Gardening. She has consulted for Hearst's Good Housekeeping and Country Living; Time Inc.'s Real Simple, Southern Living, and Cooking Light; and Reader's Digest.
P.S. Maxine's been helping her husband with his organic garden for, well, lots of years ... mostly by cooking with its overabundance of produce.
Jo Ann Liguori
Managing Editor
Jo Ann Liguori is the former managing editor of Seventeen, Country Living, Cosmopolitan, and Working Mother magazines and the Hearst Specials Group. She’s also worked as an editor at HGTV, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, and Good Housekeeping magazines and Scholastic.
P.S. Each June, Jo Ann spends a weekend making tons of pesto for her freezer and her friends—an annual ritual she's dubbed "Pestival."
Erin Scottberg
Digital Director
Erin comes to Modern Farmer after a career spanning the gamut of digital publishing: She cut her teeth at Popular Mechanics and Audubon magazines, among others, before moving on as an editor at AOL's Lemondrop.com (RIP), and overseeing editorial and content strategy for an online dating startup. Most recently, she led content marketing at a global agency.
P.S. Erin's called Brooklyn home for more than a decade but she'll never grow out of her rural midwestern roots—each year, she plants a window garden (to varying degrees of success).
Lila Garnett
Photography Director
Lila Garnett is the former photography director for the National Audubon Society and Organic Style magazine. Awarded the 2013 Knight Fellowship at Ohio University, she has been the photo editor for OnEarth, BOOK, and Civilization magazines. She’s also worked at People, Life, and Men’s Health magazines.
P.S. Lila's picked blueberries in Maine, peaches in France, Grapes in Greece, and apples in the Hudson Valley.
Susan Huyser
Designer
Susan Huyser has served as a graphic designer for the The New York Times Magazine, NYCity Life magazine, Target, and Neiman Marcus. Past design clients include the Ford Foundation and Amnesty International.
P.S. Susan grows vegetables in her front yard and forages in the back.
Monica Michael Willis
Editor-at-Large
The former features director at Country Living magazine, Monica Michael Willis has contributed to Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, and Every Day with Rachael Ray, among others. She also works on digital strategy for Time Inc. Content Solutions.
P.S. Monica's community garden is on the roof of a parking garage in New York City. There's a 30-year-old peach tree right in the middle of her plot.
Brian Barth
Writer-at-Large
Brian Barth is a former landscape designer and urban planner, who focused on food production in urban places. In 2013, he traded his digging fork and drafting desk for a pen and has been writing full-time ever since for publications such as Modern Farmer, Pacific Standard, Nautilus, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Horticulture, and Discover.
P.S. Brian tried out "hobby" farming for a few years, but keeps it simple these days, raising vegetables and herbs in his tiny Toronto yard.
Krista Holobar
Associate Digital Editor
Krista Holobar is the former social media editor for Civil Eats. She also worked as an editorial assistant for Garden Tribe and has provided social media management and consulting for several small startups.
P.S. Krista grew up surrounded by farms and forests in Central Pennsylvania and loves to participate in crop mobs at local farms.
Hannah Saulters
Assistant
Hannah recently graduated from Millsaps College where she studied anthropology and communications. She has worked in advertising, publishing, and editorial settings, as well as contributed to Find It in Fondren, Millsaps Magazine, Portico Jackson Magazine, and Kaleidoscope.
P.S. The farming life is inescapable for Hannah. Not only did she grow up in the middle of a cotton field, but more recently she helped her family start their cut-flower farm, Little Bluestem Farm, in her native Mississippi.
Tom Herber
Director of Finance
Tom Herber received his bachelor’s degree from Manhattan College and his MBA from Iona College. He has 30 years of experience in the media industry; before joining Modern Farmer, he worked at Hearst Corporation and TV Guide.
P.S. Tom spends lots of time in the field (and on the court)—as a referee for high-school and semi-pro football, baseball, and basketball games.
Lavender Halsey
Director of Business Operations
Lavender Halsey has worked with the finance and operational departments of young companies, including Imagine Partners, Oasis Spa, Freya Farm, and New Skete.
P.S. Lavender is a 13th-generation farmer. Her family’s Southampton, New York, farm was founded in 1644, and has been certified organic since the 1980s.
Jackie O’Connor
Digital Integrated Sales & New York Sales Director
Jackie O’Connor has worked in advertising for the past 16 years in various sales roles at Popular Mechanics, SmartMoney, Field & Stream, and Daily Mail, and was part of the team that launched Lifetime magazine.
P.S. You can often find Jackie and her family at Boxcar Cantina, Connecticut’s first certified "green" restaurant. They are big supporters of the owners’ commitment to use locally sourced and organic ingredients.
Bryan Sullivan
Southeast Advertising & Custom Content Director
Bryan comes to Modern Farmer with a deep expertise in food, beverage, and agriculture categories. He's professionally cooked from Martha’s Vineyard to the tip of Florida in some of the most respected restaurants on the East Coast. Now living in the Mountains outside of Asheville NC, he continues his love of farming by connecting farmers and chefs in his area.
P.S. Farming is also in Bryan’s heritage—his family used to own Black Angus Farm in The Berkshire Mountains, which had the distinction of winning Grand Champion Heifer.
Todd Westover
Midwest Advertising Director
Todd started his career in advertising at NBC studios in New York City. He's since traveled the U.S., working in advertising for various political, sports, and video game publications and helping companies introduce new ideas and products. Todd and his lovely wife Tammy now live in wilds of Michigan with their two boys, Drew and Jonathon.
P.S. Todd spent several summers as a teen working the fields of a produce farm in Chester, New Jersey. It’s that experience that makes him a believer of the quote from author Evan Thomas: “You don’t get anything that you don’t work hard for.”
Renee Lewin
Senior Director of Marketing
As a media branding and strategy specialist, Renee Lewin has been Associate Publisher/Marketing & Creative Services at magazines ranging from Vanity Fair and Esquire to Good Housekeeping and Self. She was also senior member of the launch teams for five national publications, including USA TODAY.
P.S. Renee finds it ironic to be working on Modern Farmer given her lifelong track record of trying, but failing, to sustain anything green—outdoors or in. (But hope springs eternal!)
Glen Fuenmayor
Creative Director of Marketing
Glen Fuenmayor is a veteran of marketing design in publishing and advertising. As a creative director for the Hearst Men's Group, he developed successful branding campaigns for Car and Driver, Road & Track, and Popular Mechanics magazines. He also has designed for Rolling Stone, Esquire, Country Living, Redbook, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Vanity Fair.
P.S. Glen is a proud investor in Everson Royce, which currently operates one bar/restaurant and two wine retail stores in the Los Angeles area, specializing in small-production wines from all around the world.
