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Valerie is Ideas Editor at The Dispatch, based in New York City. Prior to joining the company in 2025, she worked at The New York Times and NewsGuard Technologies, and she is currently a Novak Fellow through The Fund for American Studies. When Valerie isn’t commissioning and editing the next big essay for The Dispatch, she is probably people-watching in a funky cafe or scheming up her next oddly-themed party.

Alan Koppschall is an editor at Plough and a member of the Bruderhof. He lives in Rifton, New York, with his wife, Marilyn.