About Us

Pretext Social Club is an NYC-based online zine dedicated to covering awesome shit in music, fashion, film & art.

For more information, please email [email protected]

The Team:

JESSICA STRAW Editor-in-Chief & Founder
As a negotiator, breadwinner and confidant, Jessica Straw enjoys a good challenge. Her hobbies include drawing, sewing, dancing and multi-tasking. Straw aspires to one day be a cult leader but rarely uses her influence for evil — she prefers the title “Visioneer.”

KACIE DAUGHETY Editorial Contributor
A free-spirited, Spanish-speaking, narcoleptic born on a farm in North Carolinian who enjoys siestas and photographing on film.

ADAM OURIEL Music Editor

JONO BERNSTEIN Photography Contributor / jonathonbernstein.com

SCOTT LECHNER Music Contributor

MADGE Music Contributor
After surviving a childhood raised by elephants exiled from NYC to the suburbs, Madge returned to the city and sought refuge in local concert venues. She’s still there. As a cross-media creator, Madge makes things by currently playing in multiple bands and generating content for Pretext. She has a strong aversion to sunlight and begins to transform into a respectable adult upon exposure — it’s tragic, she wouldn’t recommend it. Thankfully, there is plenty of night time to enjoy; she spends it out in Brooklyn dancing at concerts and drinking whiskey in bars. She’s friendly, so if you see her, feel free to say “hi.”

BLONDE LOU Music Contributor

HEATHER NEWBERGER Fashion Contributor
Heather Newberger is obsessed with memory. In an effort to stop space and time, she acquired her first camera by mailing in a coupon from the back of her favorite Cam Jansen book. Newberger has never stopped wanting to be a teen detective. She currently owns a three-legged cat, and too many clothes.

CAMERON KELLY MCLEOD Photography Contributor
Cameron Kelly McLeod is a pot of coffee by day, bottle of wine by night kinda guy. When he’s not out hunting down great shots of New York weirdos he spends his time knitting kittens and conquering mountains.

ELLIE MORRISON Art & Fashion Contributor
With roots in both the Texas hill country and the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina, Ellie is a cultural hybrid. As a connoisseur of dualism she spends her time alternately sewing costumes for Broadway while discovering lost crafts; savoring giant Stumptown lattes while eating meals meant for a grasshopper; and pondering obsession with digital design while combing the photographic archive at the library. Morrison is a seeker of curiosities and drawn to all of life’s oddities!