E-mail: Charlene.Arsenault@patch.com                       
Phone: 508-353-7905
Hometown: Leicester, MA
Birthday: June 29, 1970

Snapshot: Single but taken, keyboard player, animal activist who started the Pet Rock Festival, writer, night owl, chatterbox, kind of sporty, adventurous, bad at Excel and PowerPoint. I grew up in Leicester, MA, and graduated with an English degree from Fitchburg State College in 1993. Out of college, I landed a small weekly music column called "The Beat Goes On" (yeah, I didn't name it) under the tutelage of editor Sandy Bowles, who is now a fellow editor for Grafton Patch.

But my first "real" job was at Worcester Magazine, which I nabbed not long after. Spending days in the news room, where then the pages were still tacked to the light board in the production room, typing led to becoming a music column, and ultimately, as an editor at Worcester Magazine and longtime freelancer, I have covered just about anything imaginable. 

Politically, I'm unusual, especially in Massachusetts. Unusual in that I'm gay, yet I most often vote conservatively. I consider myself "socially liberal and fiscally conservative," and generally subscribe to the Libertarian way of thinking. It's the antithesis of what 90 percent of my friends think, but I genuinely feel that liberalism does such a disservice to freedom in many cases that it ultimately prevents social progress, yet sounds like it is doing the exact opposite.

Still, I'm willing to listen, and again, I list quite a few major lefties among my closest friends. I, too, am very concerned about never letting biases get in the way of presenting an objective story. In the end, the story is about the subjects—not me—and I always let them talk. Over the years, I've gotten quite a few letters and comments that compliment my ability to be fair, my concern over anonymity (when it is requested) and sensitivity to keeping a comment in context.

I'm an agnostic, and just about an atheist. Yet, I find religion endlessly fascinating. I find it fascinating that Northborough seems to have more churches per square mile than just about any town I've ever covered. This town does love to pray, and I intend to find what everyone's praying about. What's making this place tick?