Meet Martha Bayne

Martha is a writer and editor whose work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, the Baffler, the Rumpus, Bookforum, and the Chicago Reader, where she was on staff from 1998-2007. Founder of the Soup & Bread series of hunger-relief fundraisers based at Chicago’s Hideout bar and music club, she is author of the Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time (Agate Publishing, 2011) and was the recipient of a 2012 Time Out Chicago “Eat Out” award for “Most Palatable Evangelism.” Currently, she serves as associate managing editor of Plate, a magazine for professional chefs, is a company member with Chicago’s Theater Oobleck, and tends bar at the Hideout on Wednesday afternoons.

Q+A

What inspires you? 

Honesty and fearlessness in other people, and the willingness to climb out on a rickety limb for a good idea. Those three go hand in hand, more often than not.

What scares you? 

Snakes. Garter snake, python – it’s all the same. They are gross. They have no limbs! Ew.

Whose undies would you run up a flagpole? 

Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, and any other politician who’s ever let fly a boneheaded and misogynist statement about women’s health and reproductive rights.

What is something most people don’t know about you? 

In the 90s I worked as a theatrical electrician and ran a loading dock in New York City.

If you had to change careers what would you do? 

Park ranger sounds good. Except I suppose there might be snakes.

Want more? Follow her on twitter @marthabayne, watch this interview she did on The Interview Show or visit her website http://www.marthabayne.com/