Stephanie Bahr Bentley
Staff position: Managing editor
Major and minor: English major and editing minor
Hometown and state: Beaverton, Oregon
Career goals: Save the world. It might be through editing or writing. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.
Favorite book: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Favorite vacation experience: When I was 8, I wanted to have an adventure so I gathered up some things in a bag and headed out the front door. The neighbor boy anted to tag along. We ended up playing in the dirt in my backyard. What a grand adventure indeed.
Favorite quote: “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” (Thomas Paine)
Hayley Bird
Staff position: Assistant art director and social media team leader
Major and minor: Journalism major and editing minor
Hometown and state: Peoria, AZ
Favorite book: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Favorite vacation locales: San Diego and Seattle
Favorite vacation experience: Traveling to England with my family when I was in fourth grade
Dream travel location: Australia or Italy
Kenna Blaylock
Staff position: Assistant art director and social media team member
Major and minor: English major and editing minor
Hometown and state: Brigham City, Utah
I never ever leave home without: At least one tube of chapstick
Dream travel locations: Japan and Korea
Travel requirement: I absolutely have to bring at least two books with me.
Favorite parts of editing: I love helping writers achieve their highest potential, as well as taking a step back and looking at the big picture to find strengths and assess weaknesses.
Caroline Bliss Larsen
Staff position: Art director and web team leader
Major and minor: English language major editing and English literature minors
Hometown and state: Westminster, Maryland
Career goal: I aspire to edit and design books of fiction in an office with lots of shelves, a large-screen iMac, and a giant window with a view.
Favorite vacation experience: Seeing world-famous Irish dancers up close in a pub in Kilkenny, Ireland . . . and saving a sheep with its head stuck in a fence in England. And basically everything I did in the British Isles!
Dream travel location: España, ¡para practicar mi español y vivir la cultura!
Naomi Clegg
Staff position: Copyeditor, senior designer, and social media team member
Major and minor: English teaching major and editing minor
Hometown: Netcong, New Jersey
Career goals: I want to teach junior high English!
Favorite vacation experience: I climbed an active volcano in Guatemala.
Favorite book: The Things They Carried
I never leave home without: Wallet, phone, keys (it’s a mantra I recite now)
Favorite quote: “In the depths of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.” –Albert Camus
Sarah Juchau
Staff position: Assistant managing editor and member of advertising team
Major and minor: English major and a minor in editing
Hometown and state: Highland, Utah
Career goals: Teacher at a juvenile detention or correctional facility
Favorite books: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; Crime and Punishment, by Dostoyevsky; and Paradise Lost, by John Milton (I never can pick just one.)
Least favorite part of editing: Being edited 🙂
Favorite vacation locale: Amsterdam
Favorite vacation experience: Traveling with my family in Israel last summer was a fantastic experience. We ate as much street food as we could and only got sick twice.
I have never: Scuba dived
Ellice Tan
Staff positions: Copy editor, advertising director, and Facebook manager
Major and minors: Linguistics major and editing and music minors
Hometown: Salt Lake City, Utah
Favorite quote: “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”
Career goals: To be an editor, a mom, and a lifelong traveler
Dream travel location: Somewhere with far-off places, daring sword fights, and magic spells
I have never: Seen a prince in disguise (I think), but it’s on the list.
Kate Zeller
Staff position: Senior editor and web team member
Major and minor: Communications major, Italian and Editing Minors
Hometown and state: Portland, OR
Career goals: Work in magazines, hopefully outdoor and travel magazines
Favorite book: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Favorite part of editing: Favorite part of editing, coming back to a finished product after a while and recognizing how far it has come from the beginning.
Favorite vacation locale: Italy
Favorite vacation experience: Backpacking Europe
One vacation necessity: Duct tape
Dream travel location: Antarctica. I have wanted to go for as long as I can remember. There is something so mysterious and moving about it. I love to travel to places that widen my perspective, and I feel like Antarctica would be one of the best places to do that. It is so remote and so disconnected from the modern world. Going to Antarctica would be an experience, not just a vacation, and I love experiencing new things and help me better understand the world.
Other interesting travel tidbit: I don’t want to jinx myself by saying this, but as of now, I’ve never been robbed while abroad, and I spent about two years in Italy if you add all of my time there into a lump sum. I’ve been very lucky, but
also a little paranoid, which has helped.
Suzy Bills
Staff position: Editor in chief
Hometown and state: Glendale, Arizona
Favorite part of editing: I love helping authors communicate their ideas clearly and in an engaging way
Favorite vacation locale: Ireland
One vacation necessity: a trail to run on
I never leave home without: chapstick
Other interesting travel tidbit: I’ve traveled to Alaska and Ireland to run marathons.
Thomas Call
Staff position: Editorial advisor
Jessica Reschke
Staff position: Design adviser
Laura Jackson
Staff position: Social media adviser
Marvin Gardner
Staff position: Publisher
Hometown and state: Grew up in Duncan, Arizona, and Provo, Utah. I currently reside in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
Career: Before becoming a professor at BYU in 2005, I worked for 28 years as a full-time editor and writer for the Ensign and Liahona magazines, both of which are distributed worldwide. For more than half of those years, I was managing editor of the Liahona.