Wendy Grossman Kantor
Wendy Grossman Kantor focuses on human stories where ordinary people face extraordinary turning points, often tied to health, crime, and everyday life, including food. Her beat at People centers on reported features that let subjects explain what they are going through in detail, with attention to the emotional and practical stakes.
Life-changing health stories in patients’ own words
Much of Kantor’s current work follows individuals through severe medical crises and recovery, told with granular detail about symptoms, treatment, and daily life. In one recent feature, she chronicles a 42-year-old mother of four who develops the flu and quickly spirals into heart failure, requiring a transplant; the piece is structured around the woman’s own account of how a common illness became life-threatening and how transplant changed her future.
Another story follows a Florida mother living with Stage 4 breast cancer who explains why she still has “so much hope,” emphasizing new treatments, her family life, and the message she wants other women to hear.
These health pieces are built around extended interviews, clear timelines of diagnosis and care, and the subject’s voice, rather than medical experts, driving the narrative. The result is coverage that treats serious illness as both a clinical journey and a lived experience, connecting complex medical situations to everyday concerns like parenting, work, and household routines.
Crime and justice through victims’ families
Kantor also reports on crime and the justice system, with emphasis on the impact on victims and their relatives.
In a recent article about the failed execution of Christa Pike, she co-authors a piece centered on the parents of Pike’s victim, capturing their description of watching the procedure, their shock as Pike remained alive after two rounds of pentobarbital, and their reaction to the state’s handling of the event. The story details what they saw in the execution chamber, how they interpreted Pike’s movements, and their view of what “failed execution” means for their family, rather than focusing on legal argument alone.
This approach turns capital punishment coverage into a human-interest feature: the narrative follows the family’s experience minute by minute, underscores their longstanding trauma, and shows how procedural events in the justice system land on the people most directly affected.
Sports fandom and global events as personal narratives
Her reporting extends to major sports events when they hinge on a distinctive human subject. In her feature on British World Cup superfan Andy Milne, Kantor uses his decision to put a house on the market to finance travel to his tenth World Cup as the spine of the story.
The piece traces Milne’s decades-long commitment to attending tournaments, his reputation as “that World Cup guy,” and the financial calculus behind selling a second home to fund weeks of travel across North America. It includes Milne’s own explanation of why the World Cup matters to him, how he balances retirement plans with ticket costs, and even how the sale helps fund a trip to visit a new grandchild, tying sport to family and long‑term planning.
The article treats World Cup fandom less as a statistics-led sports story and more as a lifestyle feature, showing how one supporter reorganizes his assets and calendar to keep a lifelong ritual going.
Long-running human interest reporting across beats
Kantor has worked as a reporter for People for more than 20 years, building a long-running portfolio of human interest, health, crime, and political stories. Over that time, she has received awards for her journalism and developed a beat centered on people whose lives intersect with newsworthy events, whether those events are medical, legal, or cultural. Before joining People, she held staff writer roles at several regional newspapers, including the Houston Press, The Augusta Chronicle, the St. Pete Times, and The Virginian-Pilot, giving her experience in local reporting and general assignment work. Her work has appeared beyond People in outlets such as Time, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Parade, O, The Oprah Magazine, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, The Dallas Morning News, and the Houston Chronicle, reflecting a career that spans general news, features, and magazine storytelling. At People today, she uses that background to report food and everyday-life stories through the same human-interest lens, focusing on how choices around meals, health, and home life reveal what matters most to the individuals at the center.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.