New Monthly Newspaper Poised To Drop In 15K Reston Mailboxes This Week

RESTON, VA — Reston residents will find a surprise in their mailboxes this week. A group of local journalists will be mailing out the first issue of The Reston Letter to 15,000 addresses in Reston.

"I've lived in Reston for 15 years and also taught in Herndon," said Dawn Stuvland Crosson, the paper's owner and publisher. "I love the area and feel like we could really use something that would unify the community better that is print."

An English teacher at Herndon High, Crosson started the school's journalism program, growing it from the ground up. Although she's no longer the paper's advisor, her four years in that role demonstrated to Crosson on a small scale what a journalism program could do to unify the high school.

"As far as building community, building writers and readers, I saw so much good come from that," she said.

Springing from that initial inspiration, Crosson realized she already had many connections in the community. She and her husband have three children, who’ve been involved in youth sports for years. They also know many people in both the high schools that serve Reston and many other elementary and middle schools.

“I think it would benefit all the community members in all demographics to have an actual print paper in their hands,” she said. “It was kind of a crazy idea this summer, and I just felt like I kept meeting people and things just kind of fell into place and we’re moving along quickly.”

The Reston Letter will focus on human interest stories more than breaking news, according to Crosson. It will also have an education section and cover community sports, events, and whatever’s going on with the Reston Community Center, the Reston Association, and CenterStage.

Crosson has already sold ads for the first, eight-page issue and received positive input from others in the community for her idea.

“We will have an opinions page that I want to be very careful with as far as the content that we choose to publish and try to be very balanced,” she said. “You know, give a platform for people but not be divisive. I also don't want it to be the focus of the paper. I want to focus on celebrations in the community, the positive things going on.”

About eight people have pitched in to help to launch the newspaper, including staff writers and a photographer.

“Having taught at the high school for the last four years, I know a lot of college students who've written for me before, so they have some journalism skills,” Crosson said. “I’ve got a social media kiddo helping out who was great with the high school social media. I know about these kids who've worked for me before and then I've got some friends as well who are helping me out."

To longtime residents, the name of Crosson’s newspaper may seem familiar. A paper called The Reston Letter was published in the 1960s.

“I had a whole list of possibilities for names and I didn’t love any of them,” she said. “I went to the Reston Museum and was browsing around in their archives, which was super fun, and I happened upon The Reston Letter. I thought, ‘Wow, this is perfect.’ … I love the idea of bringing something from the past and giving it life again.”