Dialects Series Editor: Walt Wolfram
Walt Wolfram is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University, where he also directs the North Carolina Language and Life Project. He has pioneered research on social and ethnic dialects since the 1960s, authoring or co-authoring over 15 books and 200 articles on social and ethnic dialects of American English. His current research involves historically and culturally isolated communities in Eastern North Carolina and in the Bahamas. Professor Wolfram is also vitally concerned with the application of sociolinguistic information to social and educational problems and the dissemination of knowledge about dialects to the public. In this connection, he has been involved in the production of several TV documentaries on dialect diversity and the development of dialect awareness curricula for the schools. Walt Wolfram is President of the Linguistic Society of America and Past-President of the American Dialect Society.

 

Book Reviews Editor: Karen Russikoff, Ph.D., is the Coordinator of the undergraduate credit ESL program as well as the graduate TESL Program at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She holds two Master's degrees, in English and in TESL, and a PH.D. in Language and Literacy from the University of Southern California. She is currently the College/University level chair on the CATESOL State Board. She has worked and taught abroad in Asia and Europe, and her research interests include issues related to ESL composition, including plagiarism as a cross-cultural phenomenon, assessment, and oral proficiency.

 

 

 

Last Laugh: Richard Lederer
With more than a million of his books in print, Richard Lederer (aka the Wizard of Idiom, Attila the Pun, and Conan the Grammarian) is America’s “Super-duper Blooper Snooper.” Richard’s weekly radio show "A Way With Words," celebrates “that tremendous, stupendous, end-over-endous adventure we call language.”

 

 

 

Advertising Executive: Emma Sutton
Having worked at one of Milan's top fashion houses, Emma decided to use her fluent Italian in toursim and joined British Airways flight crew. Over the next few years, she had the opportunity to literally travel the world before she decided that southern California was the place for her.

Far from the rainy skies of London, Emma relishes the outdoor life of her new home. She rides horses and enjoys the Topanga Canyon or Malibu areas in her spare time.

 

 

Advertising Executive: Willy Piñon
Guillermo Piñon hails originally from Argentina, where he developed a passion for surfing. When not serving our advertisers and researching language schools around the globe, he will be found catching the waves here in sunny California.

 

 

 

 

Assistant Editor: Kate Sommers-Dawes studied Communications at Northwestern University, where she was involved in the theater community and a tutoring program for
elementary students living in transitional housing, but mostly just tried to survive Chicago's subzero temperatures. Prior to her current position, she worked as a foreign language educator and at a globally recognized research center. Kate provides Langage Magazine with an expertise in French, is learning Spanish, and unabashedly worships the novels of William Faulkner.

 

 

 

Staff Contributer: Christine Tsai
Christine graduated from UC Irvine with a B.A. in both English and dance and a M.A. in teaching. Like any writer/editor should, she has an insane passion for books and reading. She also loves to travel and recently completed a 3-month internship in Beijing, China, writing and editing for a travel company before joining the staff of Language Magazine.

 

 

Creative Director: Gregory Van Zuyen is an award-winning art director and idiot savant who believes appliances have souls. While gifted in computers, he has limited language skills and we don't let him answer the phones.

He is said to teach digital publishing at Santa Monica College and LA College International, but we have our doubts as to the authenticity of his actual whereabouts most of the time.
We're pretty sure he is harmless.