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    The Sun InterviewBy Naomi PittsStandards of CareRolonda Donelson on Bias and Anti-Science Attitudes in Medicine

    The reason Black women were used to develop the field of gynecology was because they were no more than property. They weren’t seen as people; they were just seen as things. The controlling of Black women’s bodies started with chattel slavery, but it continues today.

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    Readers WriteBy Our ReadersMilk

    Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

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Staff

Reader Services Specialist Lynn Ashmore
Lynn Ashmore Reader Services Specialist

Lynn joined The Sun in February 2025 after completing a year in a service corps. She enjoys playing clarinet with her band and meeting up with friends to play Dungeons & Dragons. Originally from Fairfax, Virginia, Lynn moved to Durham, North Carolina, in the summer of 2023 and welcomes opportunities to explore her new home.

Associate Editor Derek Askey
Derek AskeySenior Editor

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh and toiling away in a dreadful little cubicle for years, Derek left to earn his master’s at Colorado State University. He started at The Sun in 2014 and lives with his wife, Madelaine, and his son, Monty, in Durham, North Carolina. He’s currently in that embarrassing stage of life where he’s revisiting things he liked in middle school and finding out he still likes them.

Editor & Publisher Rob Bowers
Rob Bowers Editor & Publisher

Rob started reading The Sun in 1996 as an antidote to his professional life in finance and commerce. He later left his career to start an organic farm and spent nine years toiling in the North Carolina dirt—an agrarian midlife crisis of sorts. Today he and his wife, Cheri, and daughter, Téa, live in Cedar Grove, North Carolina.

Associate Editor Finn Cohen
Finn CohenSenior Editor

Finn grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and has a music degree from Duke University. He has been an editor and writer at The New York Times, Apple News, and The Moscow Times.

Editorial Associate & Photo Editor Rachel J. Elliott
Rachel J. Elliott Editorial Associate & Photo Editor

Rachel has worked at The Sun since November 1997 and has contributed photographs and interviews to its pages. She enjoys playing volleyball and cornhole with family and friends in Carrboro, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Seth, and her dog, Kodi.

Editorial Assistant Alyson Favilla
Alyson Favilla Editorial Assistant

Al joined The Sun in 2025 after earning an MFA in poetry at the University of Mississippi and just before embarking on a PhD in English literature at the University of Maryland. They live in College Park with their wife, Aileen, two parrots, and a very lazy corgi.

Associate Editor Nancy Holochwost
Nancy Holochwost Associate Editor

The daughter of an English teacher and a craftsman, Nancy grew up amid the rolling farmlands of northern New Jersey. She received her BA from Yale University and worked for ten years to end homelessness before coming to The Sun in 2017. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband, her cat, and a yard full of fireflies.

Associate Publisher Holly McKinney
Holly McKinney Associate Publisher

Holly has been at The Sun since 2009. She has a deep love of music and frequently forces her girlfriends to drink wine with her and cry over sad songs for hours on end. She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, with her husband, Brockton.

Proofreader Seth Mirsky
Seth Mirsky Proofreader

Seth began doing editorial work for The Sun in 1993. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Harvard Divinity School, he has published articles on men, feminism, and contemporary religion, and is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Seth plays several musical instruments and lives on two Maine islands—one accessible by bridge, the other not.

Reader Services Manager Chrystal Pitt
Chrystal Pitt Reader Services Manager

Chrystal joined The Sun in November 2021 after relocating from New York. She likes to cook, bake, and torture her family with card- and board-game tournaments. (They love it, though.) She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her toddler son, Lonnie IV, who runs, jumps, and makes a mess; she also has a grown son, Xavier, who plays basketball and writes in his spare time.

Founder & Editor Emeritus Sy Safransky
Sy Safransky Founder & Editor Emeritus

Sy was editor of his junior-high newspaper, his high-school newspaper, and his college newspaper. (Guess where this is heading.) He earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, then worked as a newspaper reporter until he discovered that the real news is what connects us. Miraculously, the magazine he founded in 1974 survives to this day.

Senior Editor Andrew Snee
Andrew SneeManaging Editor

Andrew has been at The Sun since 1994. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was better at editing other students’ short stories than he was at writing his own. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

With Help From

Manuscript reading: Dave Hart, Paula Jolin, and Lauren Rose
Submission processing: Colleen Donfield, Seth Elliott, Anna Gazmarian, and Hank Stephenson
Layout: Dena Gray
Reader services: Shelley Neff

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