Here's Anne!

Friends, you’re in for a treat!

I’m taking a short break from Chatterlines and giving you the chance to hear a new voice. My good friend Anne Keisman Cissel, an amazing writer, will step in for the next couple of weeks. I feel very lucky that she wants to do this.

Anne and I worked together at the Loudoun Times-Mirror in Leesburg, Va., where she became something of a local celebrity through her popular feature, “Where’s Anne?” Each week she and photographer Lisa Johnson found an obscure spot in Loudoun County, and Anne would pose for a shot. Readers then guessed where she was; the first one with the correct answer won a prize. Readers loved it!

Rumor had it that Anne’s picture was plastered on the side of a county bus à la Carrie Bradshaw in an ad for the paper (see above), but few of us actually can attest to that.

Anne also covered county government for LTM. She went on to become business editor and later, assistant managing editor. She left the paper after five years to become online media coordinator for “Green Hour,” a Web program of the National Wildlife Federation.

Over the years, Anne and I bonded at our newsroom desks and in cheap restaurants over lunch. At LTM she turned a deaf ear to my gum chewing, and I tolerated her deep sighing after particularly contentious phone interviews. Anne lived in Manhattan before moving to Leesburg; our mutual passion for The City has energized many a conversation!

Anne and her husband, Scott, moved to Reston a few years ago. Now that we’re practically neighbors, we’ve tried to recreate our NYC lifestyle. That mostly means wearing black all the time and complaining about how much it costs to live here. Contrary to popular belief, the world-class Lake Anne Center in Reston was not named after Anne.

I know you’ll enjoy Anne’s posts. Her singular prose is surpassed only by her sharp wit.

Have fun, Anne!