Meet the Staff
Heidi Komlofske & Ross Rojek
Co-Publishers
The saying “It doesn’t get much better than this” was an understatement with the teaming of Heidi and Ross. There’s also a saying: “Don’t mix business with pleasure.” They ignored the second cliché and dove head-first into conceptualizing the Sacramento Book Review in the spring of 2008 at the same time as beginning a relationship….for they tend to do things in Warp Speed.
As the wearer of many hats (Owner, Co-Publisher, Layout, Graphic Designer, sometimes Editor, and occasional Book Reviewer), Heidi brings more than 15 years of marketing and graphic design experience to SBR and SFBR. Doing newspaper layout and producing a monthly publication is something she’s learning on the fly. You can usually find her perched at the kitchen table, pounding away on her laptop….somewhere amongst a pile of books higher than her head. She’s the “Julie McCoy” of this operation – always the chatty one with wit and prose.
Ross was born and raised in Northern California, and spent most of his life in Sacramento. He graduated high school in Carmichael, and attended CSUS.
In his early twenties, Ross set out to combine his love of comic books with his entrepreneurial spirit. In 1991, he opened his first comic book store–Beyond the Pale, a comic and game store in Midtown Sacramento. After successfully operating that store for several years, he purchased the Comics & Comix chain in 1997 and consolidated the stores down to six locations. In 2001, Ross purchased the Another Universe online retailer and combined that into the retail operation.
After making some poor decisions and becoming involved with a shady set of telemarketer organizations, in April 2004, he was arrested for his part in a telemarketing fraud. He plead guilty to two counts of fraud, and served just under four years in federal prison camps. During this time, he went back to school and started writing book reviews for the local community college school paper. His experiences in finding new books to read for himself and other inmates in his job as prison librarian, lead him to develop his “dream” book review.
Ross’s story is proof that you can dust yourself off after falling down and begin anew. Combining his love of books and business savvy with Heidi’s talent for graphic design led her to open the doors of the Sacramento Book Review in September 2008 and San Francisco Book Review in September 2009, where Ross is the senior editor of the monthly publications.
Together, they live near Sacramento with their six children, spending most of their time working at opposite ends of the kitchen table producing the paper.
Kaye Cloutman
Associate Editor & Book Reviewer
Kaye has a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism at the University of the Philippines and also attended a 2-year Culinary Program at the Center of Culinary Arts in Manila. She is a self-confessed bookworm who practically grew up in the library, has an unusual penchant for the aroma of old books and finds the ambiance of a library very soothing. Kaye has 9 years of experience working with print, radio, and television media. She is popularly known as the “Love Potion Columnist” for her sex and relationship advice columns in Mirror Magazine. She also bagged some accolades for her 2006 bridal magazine work with Philippine Graphic Publications. She continued her patriotic support of local Philippine talent by creating The Modern Balikbayan Bride published through Blurb, which serves as a valuable resource book (www.clout.org/balikbayanbride) to all prospective overseas brides planning their Philippine wedding.
Kaye is a Jane-of-all-trades whose career has gone from concocting organic and botanical body care products (www.clout.org/potionplanet) to training people in the wellness industry, doing a little bit of writing, and giving presentations to personality development seminars for would-be moms and career women back in Asia. She found she was spreading herself too thinly over her chosen endeavors, so early in 2004, this single mother finally gave some allegiance to herself, her life, and her daughter. She settled down and relocated to the United States after years of service to others in Asia. Kaye was very fortunate to tie the knot with John, a Silicon Valley maverick who empowered her by introducing her to the world of gears and gadgetry. She immersed herself with digital art, graphic layout, web design, and video editing. Kaye has always been fascinated with film and photography, so it was like second nature for her to be sucked in to all the “techie” stuff. This became very beneficial because she also sought ways to improve her marketing and promotion skills.
After a few months, Kaye started to do freelance work by creating marketing collateral and websites for clients and friends in her area. She was really overwhelmed with all the cool things that were readily available to her; and though she swears this did not turn her into a techie geekazoid most of her friends insist otherwise. Though she has said goodbye to the glamorous life back in Asia and evolved into a PTA soccer mom, the joy she gets from spending time with her daughter and seeing her content, happy and confident in school is priceless – she wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world. She’s grateful for all the blessings bestowed upon her and only wishes for everyone to be as fortunate as she is.
On a different note, Kaye has had an underlying heart defect since birth called Eisenmenger Syndrome. Doctors then gave her a life span of up to 18-20 years. Her faith towards a higher being, however, had always been her source of strength, faith, and determination to live, and Stanford doctors are astounded that she has lived this long with such a complicated medical condition. In the summer of 2007, her physicians feared for her life once again with the pregnancy of her second child. It was such a life-threatening situation that the doctors gave her only 40% chance of survival. The odds were also against her delivering a healthy normal child. They had closely monitored her during this time, and she had to undergo emergency c-section in her 7th month. She almost did not survive and had to spend long months in the ICU with complications and emergency surgeries but with God, her doctor’s and family’s help, she is now close to becoming a 100% normal PTA Soccer mom. Kaye was never enslaved by her ailment – to the contrary, she’s an eternal optimist. More than a hundred doctors were seeing her during her hospital stay and they had commended her for her strong willpower to live on. They featured Kaye in their annual report as the first Eisenmenger Syndrome mother to successfully give birth to a normal healthy child and also survive the pregnancy (page 13 http://www.clout.org/kaye/LPCH_annreport_rd4%20wssedits.pdf .
Kaye says that although she may not be financially wealthy she firmly believes that she possesses the greatest treasures in the world. A loving and devoted husband, a daughter that would make any parent proud, a fourth chance in life and a heavenly little blessing named John Folsom Cloutman IV. “Working at Sacramento Book Review with great people like Heidi and Ross has been very therapeutic for me and instrumental in my goal to live a normal life once again. I will be forever grateful to them for allowing me to be part of their humble beginnings and winning team. There is so much great potential for this publication, and there is something to be celebrated with its immediate success in the face of an imperiled publication industry.”
Jennifer LeBrun
Editorial Assistant & Book Reviewer
I am, in a lot of ways, your typical busy college student. I just received my AA in Social Science from Ohlone College and am now working towards my Bachelor’s in Social Work at SJSU. I hope to one day open an at-risk youth center to help the less-fortunate kids in our society. Having wondered what “I wanted to be when I grow up” for a long time, and majoring in both Business and Child Development before settling on Social Work, this was a passion that found me…so I know it’s the right path. Like Ghandi said, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” I love sports, especially football and basketball (Go Raiders! Go Spurs!), and enjoy going to as many games as possible. I love watching movies, old and new, especially the greatest movie ever created Dirty Dancing. I have an adorable 2-year-old pug named Rocko, who is the apple of my eye. He may have a face only a mother could love, but he’s the best dog in the world. I have a great support team around me, and without them I wouldn’t be who I am today. My parents have been great examples of hard work and dedication, and that example keeps me motivated. My boyfriend, Tim, is also right there supporting me every step of the way. This November will be our 4-year anniversary, and we can only wonder what the future has in store for us.
Wonder how I got involved with SBR? Well, Heidi and my mom work together. My mom came home one day with a book to review and I became interested too. My first review went in the second issue of SBR back in September 2008. I figured, because I had completed all required English classes, this would be a creative way to keep my writing skills fresh. I don’t have much time to read longer books, considering I have text books to read every night, so I decided to review children’s books. That was great because, at the time, I was the only reviewer doing children’s books-it’s like I had my own section in the magazine. I am now also working as an Editorial Assistant for SBR.
So that’s me in a nut shell. Love what you do and do what you love.
