Who are we?

Want to find out more about the editorial team behind The F-Word? Then read on! If you want to see a full list of contributors, this is the place you need to click.

The editorship of The F-Word is rotated between our editorial team. Our current editor is Ania Ostrowska and her term started in July 2015.

Rotating editor: Ania Ostrowska

Editor at large: Jess McCabe

Founder: Catherine Redfern

Section editors

Comedy and theatre: Lissy Lovett

Features: D H Kelly

Film: Ania Ostrowska

Music: Joanna Whitehead

TV: Holly Combe

Non-fiction and regular content: Lusana Taylor

Other editors and bloggers:

Guest content: Lily Kendall

Social media: Shoshana Devora

Regular blogger: Megan Stodel

The F-Word team includes:

Ania Ostrowska
D H Kelly
Holly Combe
Jess McCabe
Joanna Whitehead
Lily Kendall
Lissy Lovett
Lusana Taylor
Megan Stodel
Shiha Kaur
Shoshana Devora

More about the people behind The F-Word:

Ania Ostrowska (rotating editor, film editor)

Polish-British post-communist feminist, Ania Ostrowska has lived in London for ten years, having moved here to get an MA in gender studies from SOAS. With her fingers in too many pies, she is also a PhD student researching contemporary British women documentarians at the University of Southampton. Find her on Twitter (representing herself only) @ostrutka.

Catherine Redfern (founder)

Catherine Redfern founded The F-Word and was editor from 2001-2007. She is from Tameside, Manchester and has been living in London for about ten years, much to her parents’ annoyance. She is co-author, with Kristin Aune, of Reclaiming The F Word: The New Feminist Movement, a book about the resurgence and reclamation of feminism over the last ten years, today’s issues and today’s feminist activism. The book was published in June 2010 by Zed Books. She hangs out @cathredfern and has various craft obsessions which she blogs about on her infrequently updated, unprofessional, low-key personal blog.

D H Kelly (features editor)

D H Kelly had written occasionally for The F-Word before becoming a permanent blogger in 2014 and the Features Editor in 2015. She also blogs at Diary of a Goldfish, where she founded the annual Blogging Against Disablism Day. She also paints portraits, writes novels and is nearly fluent in the invented language, toki pona.

Holly Combe (TV editor)

Holly Combe has been a feminist for as long as she can remember but became active when she joined Feminists Against Censorship (FAC). She started reading and contributing to The F-Word in 2002 after receiving an e-mail about the site in a Yahoo group she took part in at the time. She joined the blog in 2005, was appointed as joint music editor with Cazz Blase in 2011 and became editor of the TV section of the site in 2013.

Holly has had writing published in a number of other outlets including Yahoo!, STUDIO magazine, Economic Issues, Scarlet magazine, The Guardian, The Fresh Outlook, The New Statesman, Bookslut, Girlchick and The Oxford Mail. She mainly works as a copy editor, but you can sometimes catch her taking part in radio debates or DJ’ing. Along with this, she has an MA in Applied Social Research.

You can follow Holly on Twitter @hollycombe.

Jess McCabe (editor at large)

Jess edited The F-Word from February 2007 to May 2013. You might still see her name pop up on the site, if she gets herself together to write the occasional blog post, feature or review.

Jess makes a living as a reporter, currently covering a beat that includes social housing and environmental issues. She lives in South London with one bloke and two gigantic cats. Find her on Twitter @jester, or on Tumblr.

Joanna Whitehead (music editor)

Jo has been aware of and interested in social and gender inequality for as long as she can remember. A native Yorkshire-woman, Jo finds inspiration and sanctuary in music and dreams of taking a year off to intensively study – and master – a musical instrument. This week, the trumpet is favourite. She is anti-musical snobbery and has no guilt about any of her musical pleasures.

Jo escapes the “challenges” of her 9-5 through running, reading, discovering new tunes and surfing Pinterest (heavy feminist presence, people). She feels privileged to be part of The F-Word team.

Lily Kendall (guest content editor)

Lily is a feminist blogger living in Wandsworth, London, who currently works in communications at a leading UK youth charity. Lily studied for an MSc in Human Rights at the LSE, during which time she read and categorised 3,364 abusive comments for a dissertation on online misogynistic hate speech and revenge porn. When she isn’t busy completing masochistic research projects, she’s engaged in a quest to make the perfect pad thai.

Lissy Lovett (comedy and theatre editor)

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: That’s not funny!
Lissy Lovett works in the arts and lives in South London. She likes comedy, theatre, reality television, sewing, beer, Norwich City Football Club, the Streatham Ice Hockey teams and feminism. From time to time she tweets @lissylovett.

Lusana Taylor (non-fiction and regular content editor)

Lusana’s feminist awakening came when she first listened to a Bikini Kill CD and ever since she’s had an enduring interest in Riot Grrrl and 1990s’ zine culture. When she’s not working as an editor for an independent fiction publisher, she’s probably setting herself unrealistic reading challenges, taking photos of her cat or looking longingly at pictures of cakes. You can find her on Twitter here: @LusanaTaylor.

Megan Stodel (blogger)

Previously the theatre and art editor, Megan now blogs regularly for The F-Word, with a particular interest in (bi)sexuality, immigration and asylum and relationships, though really just about whatever happens to have come up (and inevitably, theatre and art get a fair look in too). When Megan isn’t pondering the gender dynamic created in the latest offering by the National Theatre, she can be found travelling, arguing about politics or experimenting with new recipes (with varying levels of success). Megan can also lick her elbow: a superpower the feminist movement has been long awaiting. Follow her on Twitter: @MeganStodel.

Shiha Kaur (team member)

Shiha Kaur comes from a British-Asian background and originally started out as a guest blogger for The F-Word in April 2010. She worries about the apparent lack of feminists from her community and the social pressures and demands often inflicted on young British-Asian women. She enjoys dancing, cooking and starting craft projects which never seem to get finished. If she has three hours to spare she likes to watch old Bollywood films with the subtitles switched on.

Shoshana Devora (social media editor)

Having been raised by lesbian mums, Shoshana’s feminist identity started forming when she was still in nappies. She’s now particularly interested in intersectional feminism. When she’s not debating politics, she’s normally planning her next backpacking trip or hunting for cheap theatre tickets. She blogs at My Motherfull Family and can be found (just about) on Twitter: @Shoshana_Devora.