Erin Scottberg a journalist by profession, though she also dabbles in graphic design and photography. She is currently the community editor at Lemondrop.com. Before that, she headed up the research department at Popular Mechanics magazine. And no, that does not mean she can fix your car, although that's not to say she's completely inept under the hood--she can change the headlight on a 1989 Honda Prelude in under five minutes. Her other notable skills include returning merchandise well after 90 days, fitting an extraordinary amount of stuff in small spaces and making a killer bowl of guacamole. Erin starts each morning with a glass of Some Pulp orange juice, but she is really not fit for human interaction until two cups of coffee. Black.
Erin has written for Audubon, Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and Laptop magazines, among a variety of other publications. Her favorite TV show is Lost, and she gets to geek about it with science and medical experts for her weekly column fact-checking the show's science. She is actively involved with the MacDella Cooper Foundation, an organization devoted to empowering Liberian youth by providing education and basic necessities of life. Their current project is building Libera's first tuition-free boarding school, which will house and educate elementary-age boys and girls in Monrovia.
Erin graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in a swift 4.5 years. Her mother is particularly proud of the extra .5. Erin spent four years working at Buzz, the local alt-weekly, eventually becoming editor in chief. In high school, a good chunk of her after school and weekend time was spent folding jeans at a store in the local mall. Consequently, Erin thinks everyone should be required to work retail or food service at some point in their lives; it's good for the soul.
Erin grew up in Elmhurst, a western suburb of Chicago. She spent most of her time there on her bike or at the community pool. At 15, she moved to a small Illinois farm community called Kirkland--a small town where, in the words of one of her 28 classmates, "You can't shit without everyone knowing what color it is." She now lives in Brooklyn, where she once again spends a lot of time on her bike. She is still looking for anywhere in New York that can build a proper hot dog but is happy to have found a neighborhood bar will always turn on the Cubs game.