Note to our blog readers: I am very excited to post the following announcement, which will appear in next week’s edition of Gambit Weekly. I add my personal congratulations to Kevin and join all my colleagues at the paper in welcoming him to our Gambit family. — Clancy DuBos
Veteran journalist, blogger, novelist and playwright Kevin Allman joins the staff of Gambit Weekly next week, taking the helm as editor. He replaces Clancy DuBos, who will remain on staff as the political editor. DuBos co-owns the paper with his wife, publisher and CEO Margo DuBos, and is chairman of Gambit Communications Inc.
“I’ve read Gambit Weekly since I came to town in 1993, and I’m really pleased and thankful to be offered the opportunity to join the paper’s editorial team,” Allman says. “New Orleans in 2008 is an exciting place and time to be a journalist. There’s great work being done at the city’s papers, on its TV news and on the local blogs, and they’re working together in interesting ways — some ways that are actually ahead of the rest of the nation in their hyper-local focus. I’m looking forward to suiting up and joining the fray.”
Allman’s experience spans the spectrum of journalism and includes writing online for pbs.org and writing articles for a host of respected publications, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Vogue, LA Weekly and others. His assignments have included profiles of Michael Reagan and Kurt Cobain, lifestyle features, travel writing and book reviews — “and a lot of pieces explaining New Orleans, post-Katrina, to readers on the East and West Coasts.”
Allman also has written two novels and several plays that were produced at Le Chat Noir, Dramarama and the Walker Percy Playwrights’ Festival. He blogs on writing and the media at his Web site, www.kevinallman.com and has become a regular blogger on Gambit’s blog site, blogofneworleans.com. Locally, he served as editor of Where magazine from 1998 to 2005.
DuBos will continue to write his weekly Politics column and contribute to the paper’s blog site. He also will continue to edit the paper’s political content and commentaries. “This is a change that I have been contemplating for almost a year,” DuBos says. “I feel this is the right time to pass the baton, and I am thrilled that we found someone like Kevin to lead Gambit Weekly into the next era of alternative newsgathering in New Orleans. He will inherit a team of very talented writers, editors and freelancers, and I look forward to watching him take the paper to its next level of excellence.”
In other staff changes, Loyola University graduate Alex Woodward joined the paper last week as an editorial assistant who will coordinate Gambit’s listings and calendars. While at Loyola, Woodward was a staff writer, photographer and Life & Times editor at the university’s prize-winning newspaper, the Maroon. He also was a staff writer for Antigravity magazine.
Woodward replaces Noah Bonaparte Pais, who was promoted to staff writer. Staffer David Winkler-Schmit has been named the paper’s senior writer.
