Hello, friends, family, strangers, secret admirers and haters,
I have been meaning to start a newsletter to keep you updated on my whereabouts, writings, appearances, and random musings no self-respecting publication would ever say yes to—so here we are: Welcome to my Substack :)
A little bit about myself….I am a feminist writer and editor. I have always worked on or adjacent to social justice issues—from my early days as an Americorp volunteer (wherein I got to do a short stint on the Clearwater) to later working at the Center for Media Justice. I then worked in consulting and ended up at the shortlived but very impactful Mic News, after which I had a three-year run as the Executive Editor of Teen Vogue. These days, I’m a columnist at The Cut (and write freelance for a variety of other publications) and am also the editorial director at the feminist media company The Meteor. But I’m currently on leave because….
I’m about to publish my third book, The Myth of Making It, on June 18th. It is a reported memoir about women’s ambition and the state of workplace feminism. It took me three years to write it, and I can’t wait to share it with you. You can preorder it here. (Amazon just named it Editors’ Pick in Nonfiction for June!).
I also wrote a book about dating and feminism a bazillion years ago and co-edited an anthology with Kate Harding called Nasty Women in 2017.
When I’m not working (which is rare, hello from my vacation!), I’m spending time with my lovely partner, who is a TV producer turned butcher/cheesemonger (you are jealous), and his about-to-be teenage son. I also spend a lot of time with my mother, whom I stay with part-time in a house upstate, which we share with….five cats. Umhm, feminist dreams realized. I am blessed to be part of a wide array of delightful friends—communities of artists, troublemakers, and the smartest and most loving people I know—and will likely showcase their work and projects from time to time. I also like to travel, but this isn’t my Bumble profile.
I have long delayed starting a substack because I haven’t been sure exactly what to focus it on, and best practice says you need a focus, but for now, I’ll use this space as an opportunity to share updates about my upcoming book, what I’m working on, and any other musings I think you might be interested in. The professor of a class I once spoke with said I “write about the politics of culture.” I really liked that, so I have since used that phrase to describe what I do, but my beats lately are about the workplace, self-care, and my ongoing journey with my body.
I’ll start by sending this newsletter twice per month, and we can go from there :)
So excited to keep up with you! And excited about the book, obvi.