About

Bio: 

Beth Winegarner is a journalist, author, essayist and pop culture critic who’s contributed to the New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Wired, Mother Jones, and many others. She is a former daily news reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and a former contributor to The San Francisco Chronicle. She is the author of several books, including San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History, Sacred Sonoma, Beloved, The Columbine Effect: How Five Teen Pastimes Got Caught in the Crossfire and Why Teens are Taking Them Back, and Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa. She is a member of the Writers Grotto, based in San Francisco.

 

Fun facts:

  • I grew up in rural Sonoma County, where it's green, quiet and under-served by public transportation. One of my favorite police-log entries from my hometown described a burglar who climbed through a bathroom window, stepped into the toilet, and broke it.

  • I received a degree in sociology from UC Berkeley. When I was there, Chunk from the Goonies was our student body president, the Naked Guy had recently made international headlines, and the UC Regents voted to end affirmative action.

  • Early in my career, I worked for one of the first online music publications, Addicted to Noise, which was later bought by MTV.com. I was also a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle's pop music section, where my editor was the legendary Joel Selvin and I interviewed celebs like Cyndi Lauper and Pat Boone.

  • I ran my own BBS for two years, and I've been on the Internet since 1992. The nickname I used on IRC is the same nickname I later used in Ingress.

  • For three years I was Law360's only reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I covered the trials of Apple vs. Samsung (twice!), college athletes vs. the NCAA, and Ellen Pao's sexual bias trial against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. I know enough about patent law to bore just about anybody to sleep.

  • I have lived in San Francisco since 2004. I have been to Alcatraz, but I've never stood in line at Tartine (My excuse? I’m allergic to gluten).

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