BTP Staff
- Lily Toppenberg, illustrator
- Scott Olling, book designer
- Amberly Finarelli, editor
- Joan Waters, editor
- Richard Munroe, photographer
- Jocelyn Munroe, publisher
Lily Toppenberg
POLYSKILLABIC: Sacramento artist Lily Toppenberg has been involved in art of some type all of her life. She began making art in public as a pre-schooler, drawing pictures of horses for the amusement of the customers in her parents’ restaraunt at Cottonwood Corners in southern California. After studying art at the California College of Arts and Crafts, she began her commercial art career in 1977 as a graphic designer and illustrator, then segued into film production doing camera graphics, story boards, and, along the way, picking up innumurable skills in many mediums while making props, models and film sets. She has received many awards for her efforts, including an Emmy, two Clios, the Communication Arts Magazine Award of Excellence and has been honored by the Sacramento Advertising Club countless times. At present, she divides her time between computer graphics* and painting commercial and residential murals, magically transforming rooms into environments.
*Book cover design, editorial illustration, music CD packages, photo-illustration, web design, etc.
Scott Olling
Scott Olling is an artist who loves books. “All my life I’ve been a reader,” he says. “But it’s not just the words that I love, though the words can take the top of your head off. I love the experience of reading.
“Reading is a physical, sense-driven experience. Readers forget that sometimes. Printers don’t. Neither do designers. Reading is about the story, but it’s also about the way the book feels in your hands, and the way the words look on the page.
“When you remember reading a favorite book, you don’t remember just the story — you probably also remember sitting in a particular place, in a certain light, turning the pages, and maybe you remember the taste of coffee or tea or whatever you were drinking. You might also remember the feel of the pages and the way they looked.
“The point is that reading is also a physical experience, and an aesthetic experience, and it influences how you understand the story. The book’s look and feel should support the book’s content. It should draw in the reader and support the story, and yet be transparent. When a book is designed well, you notice the story. When it’s designed badly, you notice the design. I think Coco Chanel said that. Or maybe it was Yogi Berra.”
Scott has been working on publications, and teaching others how to work on publications, for years and years. He art directs books and magazines, and consults for non-profits. He particularly likes working with authors to create books that draw in the reader and support the author’s intention. He can be reached at scottolling.com.
Amberly Finarelli
Amberly Finarelli grew up surrounded by books and decided at a young age that she wanted to be a writer. Her heroes were L. Frank Baum, Louisa May Alcott, and Maud Hart Lovelace, and though she is still working on the “being a writer” part, to this day she is proud of her story, “Jack Pumpkinhead Goes to Watsonville,” which tied for first place and was published in the Royal Club of Oz magazine when she was 13 years old. Amberly earned her A.A. at Cabrillo College, where she decided after working on the staff of The Porter Gulch Review that she wanted to pursue a career in small press publishing — a decision that earned the comment “how noble of you” from one of her San Jose State University professors. Amberly is still trying to decide whether the comment was a compliment or a dig.
After graduating with her B.A. in English from San Jose State in August 2007, Amberly joined NCPA (Northern California Publishers & Authors) where she came in contact with Jocelyn Munroe and began working for Big Tomato Press in October. To her joy, the small press world has been everything she thought it would be, and she is proud to help authors become published and succeed with such a worthy venture as Big Tomato Press.
Amberly loves reading, writing, eating chocolate, and living with her husband in Sacramento.
Joan Waters
“I am always eager to take on new projects,” says Sacramento-based editor Joan Waters. “I love every part of the publication process.” As a career journalist, Waters has worked for public and private-sector groups and organizations groups all over Northern California, including The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Magazines Corporation, California State University, Sacramento, The Crocker Art Museum, and the California State Library.
As a member of the American Copy Editors Association, Waters wrote and served as editor for the California State Library on publications such as Recommendations for Serving Asian-Language-speaking Patrons and the Partnerships for Change series. She also conducted interviews of state librarians in Chicago, Denver, Portland, San Diego and Charleston, N.C., for a California State Library and California Library Association feasibility study.
Currently Waters is a contributing editor of Sacramento magazine and the staff writer for California Landscaping magazine, a publication of the state’s leading landscape contractors trade association. Waters also served as founding and managing editor of Solano Magazine, a glossy regional lifestyle bimonthly covering Solano, Yolo and Napa counties.
Waters’ 20-year career as a journalist has included stints as editor, feature writer and copy editor. She has worked with dozens of authors and writers on their books, magazine articles, and local and national news stories. She has also edited, written and created newspaper page layouts, supervised photo shoots and collaborated with publicists, marketing professionals and public information officers for news gathering. Waters received the President’s Distinguished Service Award upon graduation from Sacramento City College in 1986 and earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism at California State University, Sacramento, on a scholarship from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. In 1996, she received the Sacramento County Historical Society’s journalism award.
Richard Munroe
Nevada City photographer Richard Munroe has done work for the Seven Hills School District, local businesses, and many weddings, book and catalog shoots. But “my favorite is landscape photography,” he says. Richard often spends weeks at a time exploring the scenic western states and Mexico to capture spectacular images. When he is not traveling he spends many hours in his darkroom in a barn surrounded by vineyards, perfecting his art.
Jocelyn Munroe
Jocelyn Munroe is from New England, mostly Boston, which gave her an appreciation for history and attempting to preserve the good parts of it. One of her favorite experiences was serving as an architectural walking tour guide along the Freedom Trail.
Although trained as a computer programmer and analyst, she’s always loved writing and in 2004 her first professional article was published. She’s had a book published by Arcadia Publishing in their series Images of America. Sacramento’s Land Park was published in February 2005. Ms. Munroe writes for Inside Publications and Sacramento Magazine on a freelance basis.
She lives in Land Park with her stellar daughter, wonderful mother, and three cats, and occasionally does crazy stuff like cycling across the country.