I am a writer and editor from Walla Walla, Washington where I live with my husband, Toby Woodruff, and our many beloved cats. I am originally from New York state where I graduated from Nazareth College of Rochester with a Philosophy degree and, naturally, no career prospects.
But with no professional guardrails to fence me in, I was free to follow my intuition—one of the many gifts of my cherished liberal arts education, where I learned to think, trust my gut, and take risks.
I ventured west, lured by a love of writing, pop culture, and literature—including the work of the famous Jacks (London, Kerouac) and Johns (Steinbeck, McPhee) I grew up reading. I landed in Ketchikan, Alaska as an Americorps Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA), where I spent a year writing grants and fundraising for a domestic violence shelter.
Meanwhile, I was nurturing a fledgling music writing career that would form the foundation of my editorial background and become a platform for my other interests and roles, including Music Editor, Seattle Weekly; Senior Editor, Seattle magazine; Content Manager, ArtistDirect; Lead Editor, The Dog People (the blog of pet care provider, Rover.com), and other positions. (You can visit my LinkedIn page to learn more.)
Trina Walker, RIP
Over the years, I worked in restaurants to support my writing and I developed a strong love of wine and food—particularly plant-based cooking, as I have been a vegetarian for most of my life (Toby is one, too). I started a vegetarian dining column, “Beet Street,” at the Weekly, and have since advocated for more plant-based culinary representation in wine, working with award-winning vegan chef Miyoko Schinner and Pepper Bridge Winery to produce Walla Walla’s first-ever vegan winemaker’s dinner, and pursuing the subject and its pathways in my writing and travels.
2024 was year of recalibration. I had been working in marketing for five years and was creatively unfulfilled—something that was never an issue in the low-paying, but rewarding, editorial field.
A recent resident to Walla Walla, I was eager to become more involved in my new wine-centric community. I enrolled in Sean Sullivan‘s Writing for the Winery class at Walla Walla Community College. I applied for, and was awarded, the inaugural Allen Shoup Memorial Wine Writing Fellowship.
Soon, I quit my remote job and started working in 3D in local tasting rooms. I built this website, launched a wine column for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, “Wine Is a Food Group,” and began to pursue a renewed commitment to writing.
In my career, I’ve been able to pursue all my passions—social justice, music, the arts, pets and animals, food and wine. For now, I’ll be turning my attention to wine. As ever, I’ll be following my intuition, too.
Keep up with the latest on my blog, or search for a subject I may have written about below.
Gwendolyn Elliott 