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Meet the Team

Katie Hellmuth

Editor, Reporter, Investigative Journalist, Writer, Designer, Publisher.
Katie is a multi-media artist and storyteller. She graduated from the College of Charleston (SC) with a degree in Communications in Media Studies, and was one class shy of completing her Creative Writing Minor.

In grade school, Katie was held back from taking a second language due to an undiagnosed learning disability, so she was placed in computer classes and study halls, where her spelling did not improve, but her mind wandered as her fingers learned to fly across the keyboard. It was during this time that she learned code with the Turtle, which was the foundation of her future career in website design and development for a wide variety of clients.

While in college, Katie interned at Charleston Magazine in the art department, worked in restaurants, sold ads for the school newspaper, and wrote a love advice column called "Dear Trudy" for the college's magazine insert. She accepted the role as Editor in Chief of the college's literary magazine, Miscellany, where she became the first female in a steady line of males, thus opening the door back up to other females to continue in the position. In this capacity, Katie enjoyed reviewing submissions of visual artists and poets and essayists to compile the magazine with her editorial team.

In her final year at college, she also directed a Tennessee Williams play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, in the school's Black Box Theatre. The play was an exploration of Zelda Fitzgerald in her relationships and writing. Katie was so fascinated by her research on Zelda Fitzgerald, that she accidentally adopted the dreamy writing style of Zelda for her final essay, which confused her literary professor. To redeem herself, Katie directed the Tennessee Williams play, since she had connections in the theatre department who could pull off a solid production. This was Tennessee Williams' final play. Based on the script, he seemed equally fascinated and lost in the storytelling of Zelda's writing career and life.

After graduating college and quitting her job at one of the last blueprinting shops in Ohio (she loved the old ammonia printing machines, but the shop sold to an electronic digitizing company and wanted her to help the architects use the online-based blueprinting system as they phased out the blueprinters) Katie snagged a job on a film production as "Crafty," where she bought and served snacks to the crew. Most of the crew was from New York City. Katie befriended some, and eventually moved to NYC. Her first attempt to move to NYC was on 9/11. That morning, she listened to the news coverage of the planes hitting the towers. She turned the car around and waited until February to try to move to NYC again. In her waiting period, she followed the 9/11 news, applied to journalism programs, and absorbed that very confusing time.

All she wanted to do was to work in the news. But it didn't pay anything. After moving to NYC, she pursued various jobs. She worked as a Production Assistant on Law & Order for a year, mostly directing foot traffic. When she realized that she couldn't walk and be with her dog due to the extremely long hours of film-life, she temped for a bit for IMG in their literary agency, and then moved to a full time job at Harper Collins as an Editorial Assistant for the Entertainment imprint. She trafficked book contracts, fielded phone calls from celebrities and their attorneys trying to finish their books, and searched the slush pile for the next big idea.

But a Book Editor she is not. She needs an editor. So Katie quit that job and went back to temping, this time for a non-profit specializing in providing evidence-based maternity care information. Meaning, if you were to give birth, they provided information to help you make informed, evidence-based decisions about your care, especially if you were to use a midwife and/or doula.

In that time, she took night courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology to enjoy fashion illustration classes. She accepted the non-profit job full time, and managed their donor database, assisted in designing print materials, and redesigned their website with her programming partner.

Needing to go on her own, Katie quit again, and accepted the non-profit instead as her first retainer client. From there, her design shop grew to take in more website clients, who she also counseled on their digital marketing strategies. Katie worked with jewelry designers, product inventors, medical device creators, and some publicly traded companies. Sometimes, her team was contracted to help a business when they were featured on the Today Show, CBS, or in a Daily Candy email. Her company, Katie James, Inc. was hired to build out the website to take a multitude of online orders at once, build backup systems, and make sure the server held the traffic load. Katie James, Inc. builds custom-coded websites, and works with drag-n-drop platforms like Shopify or Squarespace.

During this chapter, Katie also started Tin Shingle, a media education business teaching and empowering businesses how to get the word out about their business by pitching the media for national and local news coverage, as well as making their own social media.

Katie moved to Beacon in 2010 while pregnant with her first child. She has three children now, three cats, one angel dog, and two angel cats. She started A Little Beacon Blog when she needed to collect all of the flyers of Things To Do, and grew overwhelmed with Facebook toxicity. She left Facebook and began attending Beacon City Council Meetings regularly to find out what was really going on, and then learned that even more goes on between the lines.

Katie enjoys reporting about Beacon, Palestine, and areas around the Hudson Valley and New York. She lived in Syracuse the first 6 years of her life before an industry tanked there, sparking her family to relocate. She encourages anyone to drive from Beacon to Syracuse to see how strangled an area can become, to eventually become nothing but earth and empty buildings that used to be businesses. No shade to Syracuse! Katie enjoyed presenting to the students of the Entrepreneurship Club there, who were all very innovative on that bustling campus.

Thank you for being here.

Twitter: No twitter right now ‘till Elon is gone. @alittlebeacon
Instagram: @katiejamesdesign @alittlebeacon @tinshingle
Other Websites: Tin Shingle & Katie James Inc.

Allie Bopp

Designer of Things To Do In Beacon Guides
With a name like Allie Bopp, it's no surprise she creates the cutest logos around! Allie is the talented designer for the Things To Do In Beacon Guide's logos that you see here on A Little Beacon Blog as well as the print flyer around town. She lives on Main Street, Beacon, NY, and currently working full-time as a graphic designer for a company in Elmsford, New York, and is a lead designer at Katie James Inc., our sister design agency. She's taking her associates degree that she earned at the Art Institute in NYC and making great designs.
Website: www.alliebopp.com

Contributors

Izdihar Dabashi

Contributing Writer
Izdihar is a Beaconite who writes about human interest stories, art and culture around us. She is studying Psychology and writes for her school newspaper. She loves fiction novels and writing poetry. When she is not writing, she is reading a novel with a strong heroine and drinking tea in a faux fur coat.
Articles by Izdihar >
Instagram: @__izdihar__

Catherine Sweet

Editor of The Second Saturday Guide
Copyeditor
Contributing Writer
Catherine Sweet is an editor and writer. When she’s satisfied that all of the commas have been placed just right, she might be found cooking, gardening, working on her old house, chilling out in the yoga studio, or surfing at the beach with her two dogs. A San Diego native, she landed in Beacon in 2008 and is amazed by the changes, big and small, she saw around town every day. That's right, "saw." Catherine moved back to her native town of San Diego in 2016, but her obsession with Beacon continues, and we are happy to have her clever wordsmithing and researching! Catherine has worked at The Journal News and Wine Spectator, and most recently serves as Managing Editor for San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles Magazine.
Instagram: @catherinecsweet