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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.
Eric Jay Toll is a Phoenix-based travel writer and photographer whose work explores the history, landscapes and overlooked stories that give places their character. His reporting pairs vivid field observation with original photography, bringing readers into destinations where culture, memory and the road meet.
