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Executive Director
Florangela Davila is a longtime Seattle journalist whose work has centered on both race and the creative community.
She’s the former race and immigration reporter at The Seattle Times, former arts reporter at KPLU, former managing editor and host at Crosscut/Cascade PBS, and most recently, the news director at KNKX Public Radio, where she led the newsroom to more than two dozen regional and national awards during her four-year tenure.
She’s been acknowledged for both her advocacy and her success in diversifying newsrooms, and she’s long been a mentor to many journalists.
She’s twice been named as one of Seattle’s “Most Influential” by Seattle Magazine. She lives in Seattle’s 98118.
Managing Editor
Rosette Royale (he/she/they) is a writer and storyteller whose first gig in journalism was in 1995 at the Provincetown Banner, on the tip of Cape Cod.
Rosette moved to Seattle in 2003 and spent more than a decade as a reporter and editor at Real Change. Rosette loves to elevate the voices of people whose stories often go unheard.
And when they aren’t reading, Rosette’s cooking up something good in the kitchen.
Operations Administrator
Lola Peters (she/her) is semi-retired from a 40-plus-year career as an organizational development and training professional.
She has written many articles and opinion pieces for the Emerald™ and also served as a developmental editor and as the editor-at-large. She lives in Renton where she writes essays, poems, and short stories reflecting her commitment to building a just society. She has published a book of essays, The Truth About White People, as well as two collections of poems, Taboos and The Book of David: A Coming of Age Tale, and written articles and essays for many other publications.
Lola has been a proud member of Seattle’s African-American Writers’ Alliance since 2007 and served on various boards including Leadership Tomorrow, Technology Access Foundation, and Central Area Motivation Program (now Byrd Barr Place).
View her website (www.lola-e-peters.com) for more information, including a list of her published articles and access to her blog.
News Editor
Yuko Kodama (she/her) moved to Seattle in 1995 and was introduced to the South End while working as a Seattle City intern and Sound Transit community liaison for Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley.
She met with neighborhood groups, service organizations, small business owners, and knocked on doors along MLK Jr. Way and Rainier Avenue to speak with residents. She came to love the people, diverse culture, and amazing foods in Southeast Seattle.
Yuko is also passionate about the critical role community media plays in our information landscape. She has dedicated over 30 years to uplifting the voices of diverse lived experiences as an award-winning journalist and, most recently, as KBCS-FM news director.
She has covered topics like equitable access to transportation and health services, and how people organize to support and protect one another. Her work has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and National Native News, as well as on JWAVE Radio (Tokyo) and ZIP FM (Nagoya) in Japan.
Yuko loves Emerald™ stories that connect us to each other and our humanity. For her, landing at the Emerald™ is coming home to the community she loves.
Arts, Culture, & Community Editor
Mark Van Streefkerk (he/him) is a mixed-race Dutch-Indonesian writer and journalist who has lived in Seattle since 2007.
He often writes about community events, LGBTQIA+ topics, local restaurants, and Seattle news. He was previously the interim guest editor for Eater Seattle and has bylines in The Seattle Times, The Stranger, Mashable, and BuzzFeed.
Mark’s favorite thing to do is bike to ChuMinh for a tofu banh mi.
You can find out more about him at markvanstreefkerk.com, and follow him on Twitter at @VanStreefkerk.
Voices and Newsletter Editor
M. Anthony Davis (Mike Davis) is the Emerald™'s newsletter and Voices editor. Born and raised in Seattle's South End, Mike is a longtime journalist who's covered everything from arts and culture to sports and politics.
Community Relationships Manager
Hailing from the Coast Salish Autonomous Zone/Technocratic City-State of Seattle, Julie-C is a veteran hip-hop artist, community organizer, and multifaceted cultural worker with a knack for emergent strategy and creative disruption.
As founder of Seattle Artist Coalition for Equitable Development (Seattle ACED) and cofounder of On The Block and Forever Safe Spaces, their ongoing mission is autonomous relationship-building and movement weaving for cultural resilience and community self-determination.
Life coaching and intuitive healing are the most recent additions to their diverse arsenal towards these ends. In addition to teaching at Brain Child Learning Center and managing ads and databases at South Seattle Emerald™, Julie also sits on the governing council of Seattle’s new Cultural Space Agency and serves as mentor artist resident at Blue Cone Studios.
A wearer of many a hat and hair, you can find, follow, and slide into their DMs at @joulesea on all platforms.
Editor and Writer
Amanda Sorell is a storyteller who lives in Seattle.
She’s an editor for the Emerald™, to which she brings her passion for food access, farming, and foraging, cultivated over 12 years editing and writing for homesteading magazines.
She's also invested in elevating the stories of people in her communities.
Read her newsletter at eClips.Substack.com.
Copy and Production Editor
Megan Christy is a proofreader, copy editor, and web content manager who has worked with a range of storytelling formats, from romance role-playing games to nonprofit grant proposals.
She started volunteering with the South Seattle Emerald™ in the summer of 2020 and joined the Emerald™ team officially the following year.
As a granddaughter of an incarcerated Japanese American during WWII, Megan is passionate about helping those whose voices have been forgotten, overlooked, or silenced by society.
