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Shannon Henry Kleiber

Shannon Henry Kleiber is a writer and editor who spent seven years as a staff columnist and reporter for The Washington Post. One of her stories chronicled a 6,000-person online community of mothers in Washington, and another shed light on the human breast milk banking and sharing phenomenon across the United States. Shannon has written for most of the newspaper’s sections, including Style, Business, Sports, National, Metro, Health and The Washington Post Magazine. From 1998 to 2005 Shannon wrote a regular column on technology culture and people for the Post’s Business section, among many other stories. During that time, in which she chronicled the boom and the bust of high-tech life, Time Magazine called Henry “the leading technology writer in Washington.”

Shannon has also written for The Christian Science Monitor, American Banker and Washington Technology. She was the founding editor of TechCapital, a magazine launched by The Washington Post to cover the intersection of technology and finance. Shannon contributed several sections, including one on how to teach kids to cook, to The Practical Guide to Practically Everything, a reference book published in 1996 and 1997 by the editors of U.S. News and World Report.

Her first book, The Dinner Club: How the Masters of the Internet Universe Rode the Rise and Fall of the Greatest Boom in History, was published in 2002 by The Free Press/Simon & Schuster. The Dinner Club was named one of the best business books of the year by Library Journal and received other critical acclaim. The Washington Post Book Review called The Dinner Club “A time capsule of the great Internet bubble” and Publisher’s Weekly called it “riotous and riveting.”

Shannon’s real interest in food began when she started growing her own vegetables and herbs in an old-fashioned “Victory Garden” in urban Washington, D.C. while she was on book leave from The Post. She particularly loves olives, fruits, and fish dishes. She believes garlic makes everything taste better and has a very light hand with the salt shaker.

Shannon has a B.A. in English Literature from Boston University and an M.A. in Journalism from The American University. In Denver, Shannon launched a cooking group of women who cook in groups of 2 or 3 and then meet monthly to swap their creations. Shannon is a contributing writer and adviser to the magazine Edible Madison, which was launched in June, 2010. She is also active in promoting better lunches and snacks in the public school system, and is a founding member of MUNCH ( Madisonians United for Nutrition for Children’s Health). Shannon now lives with her husband and two daughters in Madison, WI, where she regularly cooks with her friends.