David Savona

Writing for a living has been a lifelong dream. I majored in English in college and after graduation took a job atInternational Business magazine. I was assigned the mergers and acquisitions beat, and worked my way up to senior editor.

I took an early interest of cigars (I'm not really sure why, as my father never smoked them, nor did any other relative) and I tried various smokes in my college years, sampling as good a cigar as I could afford on a very lean budget. When I started working, I branched out, savoring each new discovery.

After writing a freelance piece in 1995 for Cigar Aficionadomagazine, I was hired by M. Shanken Communications that summer as the senior editor of Cigar Insider, which launched in January 1996. Over the years my responsibilities grew, and soon I was a senior editor of the magazine, charged with writing feature stories on the cigar industry. In 2014, I was named executive editor.

I've walked through tobacco fields in Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and even my home state of Connecticut. I've visited cigar factories around the world and spent time with virtually all the major players in the premium cigar world.

I live in the Northeast with my wife and son, and the highlight of my day is coming home and hearing my boy's footsteps as he races for the front door.