Case Closed

Andrea Simakis spent more than 20 years at The Plain Dealer covering everything from pop culture to wrongful convictions. Her work moved people to write an Ohio governor, earning a man an early release from prison, and prompted a local college to offer a scholarship in honor of forgotten women murdered by a serial killer. 

Simakis was a Kiplinger Fellow at The Ohio State University and was chosen as one of 29 journalists worldwide to study at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. She is a frequent lecturer at Case Western Reserve University where she teaches courses on criticism and narrative non-fiction writing. ​ 

Her national awards include the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for her magazine profile of a lawyer who defends abused and neglected children in juvenile court; a National Headliner Award for her profile of Cleveland playwright Eric Coble as he shepherded his first play to Broadway, and the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for her magazine narrative on the plight of a diesel mechanic whose one punch earned him two years in prison.

Lynn Ischay has worked at The Plain Dealer for 22 years. Her work there has taken her from Switzerland to South Sudan. She spent four years as Chief Photographer, then decided to return to shooting after an illness.

Prior to The Plain Dealer, Ischay worked at The Columbus Dispatch, and was a finalist in the Robert F. Kennedy Awards for "Fragile Lives," a story about the cost of keeping medical fragile children at home vs institutionalization.

At her first job, The News Herald, she won the Pro Football Hall of Fame award for a photo of a double face mask between two rival players, one a Cleveland Brown, one a Pittsburgh Steeler. 

Lynn lives in Euclid, Ohio, as close to Lake Erie as money would allow. Right now, the lake is 60 yards away.

Ellen Stein Burbach spent her career as a newspaper and magazine editor, alongside thoughtful, gifted, gutsy journalists and storytellers producing stories that impacted lives and influenced policy. She has edited award-winning newspaper stories and series including “Road to Ruin” (Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi Award); “Guardian Angel” (Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism) and “Tales from the Heart” (Reader’s Digest 20 Best Reads of 2011). As a magazine editor, she earned National Magazine Award nominations in General Excellence and Public Service, as well as twice winning Regional Magazine of the Year.

Kelley Benham French is a Professor of Practice in journalism in the Media School at Indiana University. She is also Senior Editor for Narrative and Special Projects at USA TODAY. She has edited three series that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her series on the birth of her extremely premature daughter, Juniper, was also a Pulitzer finalist.

Melodie Smith has a bachelor's degree in communications from John Carroll University and studied journalism at Kent State University and at the Maynard Institute's copy-editing program at the University of Arizona. She has had a number of roles in her more than 20 years at The Plain Dealer, including copy editor, business copy desk chief, deputy news copy desk chief, writer of the cleveland.com entertainment blog The Morning After, and curator of the Sunday Business section. She currently is the assistant business/health editor, and she also writes movie reviews.

Wendy Carr McManamon was an award-winning copy editor at The Plain Dealer for 17 years. Her work includes subjects as diverse as Joanna Connors’ personal story of rape; a fraudulent house flipper who contributed to a neighborhood’s downfall; the effects of lead poisoning on Cleveland’s children; a day in the life of patients and doctors at Cleveland Clinic’s Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute; the $350 million expansion of the Cleveland Museum of Art; and the hope and heartbreak of patients undergoing experimental cancer treatments at University Hospitals. She now resides in Richmond, Va.

Joel Downey has been at The Plain Dealer for over 40 years. For most of his career he was in the Graphics Department and worked as an Artist and then the Graphics Coordinator. He had a short stint, 2 years, filling in as the acting Graphics Editor. The last seven years his focus has been on Design and Layout as an Assistant News Editor.