Jewish Gossip Journalist/Blogger Has StL Ties 

Sasha Pasulka is a single Jewish woman and celebrity journalist/blogger with St. Louis ties. This successful businesswoman has launched two popular websites: one a celebrity gossip site called Evil Beet, www.EvilBeetGossip.com. Her other website, Zelda Lily, focuses on tolerance of women of all views and backgrounds, www.ZeldaLily.com.

Evil Beet currently averages 12.5 million views a month, with around three million unique views a month. The popular and growing site covers celebrity gossip, interviews, and more -- and offers an original twist with Sasha’s sharp comments and fun humor, making Evil Beet the one-stop shop for entertainment and celebrity gossip.

Zelda Lily is all about women and feminist issues. “Zelda Lily was named after my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. My great-grandmother was born in Russia during the pogroms, when Jews were persecuted. Her mother spent six weeks in jail just for being Jewish, and my great-grandmother had to hide out in the forest for part of her youth. These were women of great strength who faced great suffering and fear and fought through it," said Pasulka.

Sasha’s connections to St. Louis are on her father's side. Both paternal grandparents were born and reared in St. Louis and she still has extended family in the area, including an aunt and several cousins. “My grandmother, Marie Pasulka (nee Bierling) was born in St. Charles, Mo. My grandfather, Nick Pasulka, was born near the Illinois/Missouri border, but moved to St. Louis as a teenager, as did Marie. They met in a St. Louis day-old bread store where Nick was a baker and Marie was a sales clerk. They married in St. Louis, moved to Chicago and ended up having 13 children,” said Sasha.

Sasha grew up in Arizona. After graduating from high school at age 16, she headed off to Arizona State University to pursue an honors degree in computer science. While at ASU, she was the youngest recipient of the Swarthout Creative Writing Award.  After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career with Northrop Grumman, a major defense contractor, where she developed mission systems software for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. A year later, Pasulka became the youngest person ever accepted into UCLA’s FEMBA program, a top-ten MBA program geared toward working professionals. She continued to work at Northrop Grumman developing software, and completed her MBA on nights and weekends.

Sasha’s true calling came in the summer of 2006 when she started the gossip site. With her computer science background, she had a strong handle on the technical side and was able to jump right into celebrity journalism – although she never expected it to become a career. At this time, Evil Beet was born. She slowly started networking within the blogging community, and eventually partnered with RealNetworks and Film.com. Her relationship with RN allowed her to get press passes to Sundance and hit up the parties, giving her inside dirt and juicy info to blog about. Sasha also had the opportunity to do red-carpet events and inside interviews at a variety of LA events.

After completing her MBA in 2007, Sasha quit her day job and fully invested in her real passion, Evil Beet, moving from LA to New York and back to LA – and finally settling in Seattle last year. In April 2009, Sasha launched Zelda Lily which was intended as a middle-ground – a liberal and feminist website that welcomes discussion and contrasting opinions.