Hope Cartwright was killed Monday in Richmond, Virginia. Cartwright was 23 and was crossing a street when a driver made a left turn, hit her, and, police say, fled the scene. A suspect was later found and charged with felony hit-and-run.
At the time of her death, Cartwright had worked for almost two years as an assistant editor at the magazine Virginia Living. The magazine had just closed its March/April issue, which it has now dedicated to Cartwright, Editor-in-Chief Madeline Mayhood tells Washingtonian. “She was a singular talent,” Mayhood says. “Everything she touched was superior.” No matter what she was working on, Mayhood says, Cartwright “just dove in with every atom in her soul and produced exceptional work.”
Cartwright came to Virginia Living from Washingtonian, where she’d been an editorial fellow. Ann Limpert, our food critic and executive food editor, says Cartwright really impressed her—Cartwright could write quickly and turn in clean copy and “was always happily game for anything I threw at her, usually on short notice: where to cut down your own Christmas tree, marathon street closures, dog Halloween events.” The piece Limpert most remembers from Cartwright is a profile she wrote of Andy Seferlis, a stone carver at the National Cathedral. “She did a lovely job with it.”
Danesha Price-Quintanilla, Washingtonian’s director of marketing and events, remembers Cartwright as being “always willing to help and genuinely fun to be around when she worked our events.” Cartwright, she says, “was so kind!” Cathy Merrill, our CEO, says, “The Washingtonian family is saddend by the tragic loss of Hope. Though her time with us was brief, she made a positive impression on everyone she worked with. Our hearts go out to her family during this unimaginably difficult time.”
Cartwright, a Michigander who attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, dove headfirst into her life in Virginia, Mayhood writes in a new editor’s letter for the magazine’s forthcoming issue. She dug gold out of every assignment, whether she was exploring architecture in Richmond, riding a pony in the Alleghenies, or bonding with an owl named Hedwig at a Harry Potter festival in Staunton. “I tried to be a mentor, but in truth, I probably learned just as much from her,” Mayhood writes. “She was that good.”
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
