After six years, restaurant reviewer/arts editor Bethany Jean Clement is moving on from The Stranger. She's been hired to fill Nancy Leson's post at The Seattle Times, a job that sat vacant for more than five months. Clement broke the news on Slog late Friday afternoon:
I have not left myself sufficient time to fully express my feelings for you, nor for The Stranger as a whole. It's been six years (full-time, with a good spate of freelance before that)-that's 2,178 Slog posts, 546 restaurant reviews, and between the years 2005 and 2012, I bit the bullet and wrote 257 columns about Seattle bars for you.
Clement joins Seattle Times critic Providence Cicero and food and drink contributor Rebekah Denn. BJC is the latest in a string of writers to leave The Stranger, including reporters Dominic Holden and Cienna Madrid. A replacement for Clement's post has yet to be named.
In other food writer news, Julien Perry has amicably departed from Seattle Magazine. A former Eater Seattle editor, Perry says she's pursuing various endeavors, including her dinner series, the One Night Only Project. You'll see Perry's byline in the magazine through January.
Perry's predecessor at Seattle Mag Ali Scheff is returning as interim editor. Scheff tells Eater, "I'm thrilled to get to reunite with the Seattle Mag edit team, and I'm excited to work on upcoming food issues and restaurant stories." Look for her work beginning with the February issue.