Lauren Earline Leonard is an associate editor of RQ. She is a Philadelphia-based writer, director, and producer who founded Earlie Bird Productions in 2017. With EBP she co-wrote and directed V2: Creation Myth (February 2018) and Mother/Daughter (September 2018). Her original work, DREDx, premiered in 2019. Leonard holds a B.A. in theatre from Temple University.
Website | www.earliebirdproductions.com
Email | llearline@gmail.com
I. A Republic, if We Can Keep It
On July 4, 2026, the United States celebrated the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the event that severed the colonies from their allegiance to the British Crown. The document was a daring call to arms, one that would transform a domestic colonial uprising into a full-scale revolutionary war. It was also an act of treason, punishable under British law by death. For the signatories of that document, winning the war was now a matter of personal survival: If America lost, they would all hang.
What drove the Founders to this point?
Clarissa F. Griebel is director of the Governor’s Woods Foundation and managing editor of DelanceyPlace.com. She is also a Buchholz Fellow with the Committee of Seventy.
Heather Shayne Blakeslee is the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of RQ. She’s an award-winning singer-songwriter, nonprofit executive, and storyteller with over 25 years of field experience in the arts, publishing, and environmental spheres. She believes in rebuilding the Fourth Estate with regionally-based Regenerative Media, and that art and beauty can help bring us together over our common humanity. Blakeslee is volunteer Arts Fellow and Board Member with FAIR, and also volunteers with the political depolarization organization Braver Angels. She is the founder of Red Pen Arts, a consultancy that offers support to social entrepreneurs and the arts and culture community.
In 2011, she was awarded a 40-under-40 award from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and a Philadelphia City Council “Next Generation of Rising Stars” in 2012. In 2014, she won Songwriter of the Year from the New Jersey Folk Festival, and Best Singer-Songwriter from the Elephant Talk Music Festival in 2015. When RQ launched in 2019 it was named a Best New Magazine by Library Journal. Blakeslee was a first-round grantee of the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University in 2022, and in 2024 was awarded Storyteller of the Year by The Philadelphia Citizen.
Email | heather@redpenarts.com
IG | @sweetbriarrose
Christopher Spencer is an artist and a church restoration technician for Master Liturgical Designs. He is a graduate of the Lorenzo de' Medici art school in Florence, Italy, and holds an undergraduate degree in peace studies from Brandeis University. From 1996 to 1999, he was the second-fastest oyster shucker in the Boston area. Spencer has also been the head fencing coach at Haverford College for the past thirteen years.
Ginger Rudolph is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied communications and journalism at Community College of Philadelphia and art history at Temple University. Rudolph is a curator, artist, and writer. She is also the founder and editor of HAHA Magazine (High on Art, Heavy on Antics), an arts journal with a focus on contemporary and street art. As her passion for the arts grew, she co-founded HAHA x Paradigm, a civic and social arts initiative located in Philadelphia. In her free time, she writes for arts and culture journals.
Website (coming soon) | www.GingerRudolph.com
Email | rudolph.ginger@gmail.com
Instagram | @popgeekout
Joshua Mehigan is the poetry editor of RQ. His first book, The Optimist (Ohio UP), was a finalist for a 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book, Accepting the Disaster (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), was cited in the TLS, New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere as a best book of 2015. Mehigan was an artist in residence at Northwestern University from 2017 to 2020. He has received fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Jared Michael Lowe is a lifestyle writer, communications strategist, and creative consultant. He’s led social media strategy and engagement for WHYY, the University of Pennsylvania, and a host of media, academic, and cultural arts organizations. His editorial work has appeared on NBC News and in Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, and Ebony magazine. He currently serves as the communications manager at the Sustainable Business Network.
Twitter | @jaredmichaelowe
Walter Foley is RQ’s managing editor, whose previous work includes copy editing Grid, Decibel, and Magnet magazines in Philadelphia. His main areas of interest include percussion and meditation.
Lauren Earline Leonard is an associate editor of RQ. She is a Philadelphia-based writer, director, and producer who founded Earlie Bird Productions in 2017. With EBP she co-wrote and directed V2: Creation Myth (February 2018) and Mother/Daughter (September 2018). Her original work, DREDx, premiered in 2019. Leonard holds a B.A. in theatre from Temple University.
Website | www.earliebirdproductions.com
Email | llearline@gmail.com
Diana Lu is a contributing food editor and the “Constellations” columnist for RQ. She has spent more than ten years in the nonprofit, public, media, and private sectors working on urban development issues including environmental justice, design-based manufacturing, and community and economic development. Lu’s work has appeared on WHYY, the CitiesSpeak blog for the National League of Cities, and in shows produced by the Asian Arts Initiative and FringeArts. She manages the Germantown Info Hub, a community-centered journalism project that shares information for and by Germantown residents. Lu holds a master’s in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Vassar College.
Email | diana.mt.lu@gmail.com
Twitter | @dianaluwho
Instagram | @dianaluwho