Interviews
Dorothy Kalins
Biography
Dorothy has been an innovator in magazine editorial and management for decades. In 2018, she was honored by induction into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame. Kalins was the first woman ever named Adweek's Editor of the Year, and was awarded the prestigious Matrix Award from Women in Communications for her work in magazines. In 2010, she accepted the Exceptional Woman in Publishing Award from WIPP, and in 2013, Kalins was voted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who in Food & Beverage.
Kalins was the founding editor-in-chief of Metropolitan Home, the leading baby boom design publication, which won the National Magazine Award for general excellence in 1990. At Met Home, Kalins helped pioneer the concept of cause marketing, leading the magazine’s effort to raise money and awareness for DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids) raising over $3,000,000.
Kalins was named vice president and editorial director of the Meredith Design Group, responsible for the editorial direction of Metropolitan Home, Traditional Home, and Country Home.
Kalins became partner and editor in chief of Meigher Communications in 1993, where she was the founding editor of Saveur and relaunched Garden Design. Saveur was based on an idea Kalins had that would propel the food magazine out of the studio and connect its readers to authenticity: in ingredients, experiences, and traditions—ideas that forever changed the category of food magazines.
In its first five years under her direction, Saveur received 17 nominations and won three National Magazine Awards, including one for general excellence, as well as many awards from the James Beard Foundation (including one for Kalins herself for magazine writing), and the Foundation’s Americana Book Award, for Saveur Cooks Authentic American, first in a series of three Saveur books). In all she developed eight books from her magazines.
Kalins joined Newsweek as Executive Editor in 2001, brought in to build consensus and lead a team to rethink the magazine’s editorial processes. She helped direct Newsweek’s National Magazine Award–winning coverage of 9/11.
In 2006, Kalins launched Dorothy Kalins Ink, editorial consultants. As director, she and her team collaborate on book and magazine projects both here and abroad, consulting on editorial positioning, management, staffing, and redesign, and producing and writing cookbooks.
As longtime chair of the Journalism Committee of the James Beard Foundation, she led the transition of the Journalism Awards from print to become platform neutral.
For years, Kalins directed the magazine editorial curriculum at the late Stanford Professional Publishing Course and is currently a faculty advisor to the Yale Publishing Course, which, in 2010, took up the mantle of the Stanford Course.
Kalins has produced and edited four books with chef John Besh including the award-winning My New Orleans. Her collaboration with Chez Panisse chef and New York Times food columnist David Tanis resulted in the bestselling A Platter of Figs, and a follow-up, Heart of the Artichoke.
Kalins co-authored the first-ever Gramercy Tavern Cookbook with chef Michael Anthony and a history by Danny Meyer. Her next collaboration with Anthony, V is for Vegetables, won the 2016 James Beard Book Award in its category. In 2016, Kalins produced Zahav, the definitive work on Israeli-American cuisine with the award-winning chef Michael Solomonov. Zahav was named James Beard Book of the Year. In 2019, Zahav won the Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in America.
Kalins wrote and produced The Shake Shack Book, and produced Federal Donuts, The (Partially) True Spectacular Story, both published in 2017. Her next collaboration with Solomonov and Steven Cook was Israeli Soul, published in October, 2018.
Her personal book about cooking, The Kitchen Whisperers, Cooking With the Wisdom of Our Friends, was published by William Morrow/Harper Collins in September, 2021.