The mission of Our Lives Magazine is to clearly, candidly and openly reflect the diversity and optimism in our community. We are dedicated to improving our readers’ quality of life by celebrating the people, establishments and events that encourage us to embrace our identities as individuals and as an LGBTQA community.

Staff

Publisher
Patrick Farabaugh

Patrick has worked in media and publishing for almost two decades. After starting his career at Entertainment Weekly in New York City, he went on to be one of the early art directors of OUT magazine and Creative Director of Seattle magazine. At 23 he become one of the youngest senior creatives ever to be hired by the Condé Nast Publications when he went to work for five years at Condé Nast Traveler.

Patrick is a strong advocate for LGBT equality. Since arriving in Wisconsin in 2005 he’s founded the Madison Gay Hockey Association, Our Lives Magazine and co-founded the Out Professional and Executive Network (OPEN). In 2010 Governor Doyle named him an LGBTQ Living Hero to our state.

Editor
Emily Mills

Emily is a writer and storyteller at heart, and so the mission and vision of Our Lives is exactly up her alley, and she's excited to do more to contribute to the LGBT community and the fight for full equality worldwide. She is also the editor-at-large for Dane101.com, an independent media outlet focused on the political and cultural communities of Madison and Wisconsin, and has previously had work appear in Isthmus, The Capital Times, Wisconsin People & Ideas Magazine, The Progressive, and various other publications - both online and print - covering a range of topics. You can check out more of what she gets up to at emilymills.org - or contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Join her on Twitter at @millbot.

Editorial Facilitators

Our Storytellers
Kristina (Kiki) Kosnick

Kiki is the facilitator of LGBTQ Narratives, a queer activist-writers’ group she started in collaboration with OutReach and with funding from U.W.-Madison’s Center for the Humanities. Kristina is an instructor and Ph.D. candidate at the university, where she is writing her dissertation on contemporary queer women’s writing in French. Kristina was named OutReach’s Woman of the Year for 2010. To read work by members of LGBTQ Narratives, check out Our Lives’ "Our Storytellers" column.

Our Storytellers
Linda Lenzke

Linda gratefully chose Madison as her home 35 years ago and has been an active member of its LGBT community. She is a Business Development Manager whose avocations are writing poetry and spoken word performance. Linda volunteers with OutReach and co-facilitates the Women4Women group. Her newest passion is her role as an interviewer for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Oral History Project where she is collecting personal narratives of Madison’s lesbian community from the 1960s to the present.

Our Future Leaders
Ryan Petty

Our Issues
Sue Gill

Sue loves to travel, and hopes one day to go to Moscow so that she can have some ice cream while sitting in Red Square. She also loves snowshoeing and backpacking from her home base in Madison where she lives with her partner Sheri and their two dogs. Her step daughter Christa also lives in Madison where she performs with several musical groups, and her step son Aaron is in the Navy. Sue is a licensed psychologist and has been working in private practice and with crime victims at the DA’s office for the past few years. She specializes in working with PTSD and other effects of abuse, 
and in LGBT issues.

Our Rights
Tamara Packard

Tamara is a partner in the Madison law firm of Cullen Weston Pines & Bach LLP, where she practices primarily in the areas of employee rights and civil rights. A frequent speaker on legal and gay rights issues, Tamara is also an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she co-teaches the seminar Sexual Orientation and the Law. Tamara is a founding Board member of the Fair Wisconsin Education Fund, and served as President of the Board in 2006–2007.

Our History
Dick Wagner

Dick Wagner, former Dane County Board Chair, was the first openly gay county official (1980-1994) in Wisconsin and a founding member of the national association of lesbian and gay public officials. Governor Anthony Earl appointed him in 1983 to co-chair the Governor’s Commission on Lesbian and Gay Issues. He was the founding co-chair for the New Harvest Foundation for LGBT support in South Central Wisconsin and founding co-chair of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s LGBT Council, the first such alumni group in the Big Ten. He has an MA and PhD in American history from the UW Madison. Retired, he is currently researching and presenting on Wisconsin’s gay history among other civic activities.

Our Artists
Karin Wolf

Karin works and plays in the small queer bubble of Madison, Wisconsin. She is the Arts Program Administrator for the City of Madison Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development and the Madison Arts Commission. She is a long-time supporter of the arts and arts education, and is involved with many community organizations in establishing exhibitions, film programs, temporary art, and permanent public sculpture projects. Her freelance arts writing has appeared in Sculpture Magazine, Public Art Review, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as well as ongoing arts coverage for Our Lives Magazine.

Contributing Photographers

Roberto Amezcua came to Madison in 1998 from El Paso, Texas, to work as a computer programmer. While in Madison he has rekindled his love of photography and uses it to express creativity. He enjoys the emotional connection of photographs to his life experiences and finds it to be a means to connect with others. Roberto enjoys interacting with the person being photographed to set them at ease but more importantly to make a connection with the person and get their personality out. You can see some of his work at amezcuaphotography.com.

Eric Baillies is a photographer who after working in numerous cubical jobs, decided to pursue his life long passion—photography. He shares a photo studio with long-time photographer Eric Tadsen who has aided him in professional education and experience.

When Eric is not taking pictures, you can find him coaching soccer in De Forest, running, doing yoga, or preparing for his next exhibit at Gary’s Art & Frame where he works part time. For more information, go to elitevideophoto.com or ericbaillies.com