ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Rachel Marusak Hermann is an independent journalist and writer based out of Basel. She covers subjects that range from urban renewal and contemporary art to innovation trends and public health issues for Swiss and international publications. Originally from the US, she studied journalism in Strasbourg and worked in 24-hour news in Paris. Today she calls the “sunny side of Basel” home, where she lives with her husband and dog. For some writing and reporting samples, check out www.rachels-ink.com.
Marton Radkai (b. 1957) is an independent German/American journalist and editor. He covers a wide range of topics, from business and travel, to technology and mechanical watches. He grew up in France, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany and the USA, and now lives in Geneva with his wife and daughter.
You can take the boy out of East London but you can’t take East London out of the boy….. Dean Wallis loves his home town but also has a large soft spot for his adopted city of Basel. Since arriving 2 years ago Dean has stopped doing anything that he was trained in (and kept a shirt on his back) and has taken up primary school teaching and exploring Basel on the run via his latest venture Basel Running Tours. Dean has no shirts but is happy….
After leaving her hometown of Sydney, Australia, Emma Duncan moved to progressively smaller cities and towns in different countries, finally ending up in a Swiss village. Surrounded by fields, cows and in-laws, she currently juggles working as a freelancer writer and editor (www.emmaduncan.info) with the parent-at-home requirements of the Swiss school system. She blogs about parenting and her family’s life in Switzerland at www.quickcuppatea.blogspot.com.
Bill Harby is an award-winning freelance writer, editor and photographer based in Neuchâtel and Hawai‘i. See more of Bill’s work at ExpatCH, his blog about life in Switzerland. Contact Bill at billharby@hawaiiantel.net.
Following a four-year stint in San Francisco, Sandra McLellan relocated to Zurich in late 2005 where she has been living, working, playing and uncovering the mysteries of daily life in Switzerland ever since. Born, raised and still proudly Canadian, she earns her living working for Corporate America and spends her spare time travelling and lingering along the way as much as possible. Fascinated by life in this Global Village, her recent essay, “Far from Canada, But Still Connected” was published in Canada’s national newspaper, “The Globe & Mail” earlier this year.
Francesca Matera was born in Italy but moved to the UK when she was 18. About two years ago she decided to abandon a busy London life in favour of a more relaxed Swiss existence. She works primarily as a web journalist but often ends up involved in all sorts of multimedia projects. She also has a passion for food and loves spending hours in the kitchen making up recipes as she goes.She also has a personal blog at Inside the outsider.
Born in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and raised in Hanford, California, Scott Tucker first came to Switzerland as an exchange student in 1994 and has been here more or less ever since. Currently Scott is pursuing a Masters Degree in Secondary Education in Bern, and, if all goes according to plan, he should graduate in the Spring of 2011. When he isn’t teaching (and when he isn’t suffering from a busted knee), Scott can usually be found playing volleyball with the UniBern volleyball club or travelling with his wife to new and interesting destinations.
Xin Zhang stems from the Southwest of China, where she worked as a TV broadcaster and journalist for several years. She studied in Bristol and later Aberystwyth (Britain) for many years, before moving to Bern together with her family in 2008. She is now a part-time academic and full-time mum. She particularly appreciates the mild Swiss climate and unspoilt countryside – as well as having fresh farmer’s milk on tap 24h a day…
Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Nicole Catenazzi is a recent graduate and fresh-off- the-boat expat now living in Geneva, Switzerland. Currently an intern with an NGO at the United Nations, she decided to make the most of her father’s Swiss nationality, therefore her Swiss passport, and move to Switzerland indefinitely. When she’s not working for free she can be found gawking at mountains, sampling chocolate or hunting for cheap travel deals.
Heidi Hagemeier may have a Swiss-sounding name, but she is actually an American who followed her husband to Bern for his new job in 2008. She traded chasing big stories as a newspaper editor to become a first-time, full-time mom. Heidi is originally from Montana, a western U.S. state the size of Germany but with less than 1 million people. When her adorable daughter naps, Heidi is writing, trying to learn German or plotting her next outing in the countryside.
Simon Quick’s original elevator speech was: ‘I present, I negotiate and I mediate, and if all else fails, I manipulate, but my business card labels me an architect.’ Said to avoid the usual stereotyping.Simon ran his own practice in Exeter, England before moving to Switzerland in 1999 after marrying his Swiss wife Petra, who does a great job of managing his many idiosyncrasies. Following a period with Santiago Calatrava in Zurich he is now self-employed giving coaching and seminars within companies in Switzerland on the same non-technical business skills under the banner of thirdperson.ch
Originally from Chicago, USA, Chantal Panozzo arrived in Switzerland in 2006, relieved to discover a country where people can actually pronounce her name. An award-winning copywriter and writer, Chantal’s stories about Switzerland have appeared everywhere from The Christian Science Monitor to Swiss News, where she penned the monthly “Expat Adventure” column for three years. She has also served as a National Geographic Glimpse Correspondent, written and performed a corporate drama for World Radio Switzerland, and several of her essays have appeared in bestselling anthologies. In 2010, she co-founded the Zurich Writers Workshop. For more, visit Chantal’s website or her blog about life in Switzerland.
Susan Vogel-Misicka is a journalist from Boston, USA. She came to Lucerne in 2001. Having visited Switzerland a few times prior to that, she knew she’d like living in this gorgeous country in the middle of Europe. Susan is mesmerized by the mountains and gets vexed when the fog hides them from her view. She’s also a huge fan of Switzerland’s public transportation - the PostAuto and BLS trains in particular. When she’s not writing articles, she loves to take photos, many of which are posted online: susanvogelmisicka.com. Susan lives with her Swiss husband and their three cats.
Davydd Marrie is a dual Australian-British citizen who moved to Switzerland a few years ago after realising he had a better chance of teaching the Swiss English than getting Australians to understand Italian, his other field of expertise. An enthusiastic skier and amateur photographer, he works for a private language school in Lausanne, teaching eager adults. He is grateful to his wife for being who she is, and to his parents for teaching him how to use a washing machine: it comes in handy once a week.
A lynx is any of four medium-sized wild cats and they usually have complex needs for habitat. Originally from England, this Lynx wandered into Switzerland in 1996 where he settled in Bern. Although he enjoys his new habitat, he hasn’t always found it easy living alongside the Swiss, who don’t always respect his wish to be left alone.
Jenny Replogle is a student from the United States, living in Lausanne for the year. Having moved around as a child, she now calls Louisiana home. She completed a BA in History from Mississippi College and then spent a year serving with AmeriCorps. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary, and completing an internship at the Church of Scotland in Lausanne for her degree. She primarily works with the youth, who mercilessly tease her for her struggling French accent.
After some years working as a software engineer in Britain, Ross Bennie got married before finding himself two days later in Bern where his wife’s new job was (and still is). After an unsuccessful stint as a house-husband, he became an English teacher. One decade, two kids, and a teaching diploma later he now lives in rural canton Fribourg and works at the Berner Fachhochschule teaching English to business administration students, none of whom can understand why he has a surname for a first name and the Swiss diminutive for Benjamin as a surname.
Margaret Oertig-Davidson is originally from Scotland and has lived in Switzerland for twenty years. She is a lecturer in Intercultural Management at the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz and provides Intercultural Communication training to managers in international companies, specialising in Europe, the US and Japan. She is the author of “Beyond Chocolate- understanding Swiss culture” (www.bergli.ch). The book was written to help newcomers to Switzerland to understand what is going on beneath the surface in their interactions with the local people. It is also available in German: „Schokolade ist nicht alles- ein Leitfaden zur Schweizer Kultur“.
