Emily Heil is on the national staff of the Washington Post, where she writes for the In the Loop blog and column, which chronicles the foibles of the Beltway elite (its tagline: “Afflicting official Washington since 1993”). She has covered Congress for a decade, writing about everything from the minutia of prescription-drug legislation to the facial hair of Members of Congress. She came to the Post from Roll Call, where she wrote the congressional gossip column Heard on the Hill. Heil got her start in journalism at the age of 16 at The Eastern Shore News and is a graduate of the University of Virginia.