Flawed female protagonists challenge typical narrative tropes
“I just kept seeing anytime like a female character was either bad or like outspoken, or we were always giving her a big handicap to make sure like we could forgive her or like her or stick with her. I was like, what if you had a character that comes, is not running from the law or experiencing mental illness or hiding a big secret or escaping a troubled childhood and she just made some bad choices and maybe was driven by some less than lovely impulses.”
Digital shifts fundamentally transformed the publishing landscape
“The second time I went back for seven years, it was to launch the inaugural vogue.com. So it was like this still unfigured out and quite frankly, mostly failed attempt to figure out how to migrate these things online and have both properties complimenting each other and working together. It ends right at the start of the industry becoming a very different industry. So it's definitely nostalgic in that sense. To work at these places looks nothing like it did 15 years ago.”
Strict creative discipline drives successful career pivots
“I would get up at 4.15 every morning, seven days a week for two years. I wrote from 4.45 to 7.45. My first child gets up at 7.45 and then I was done. I couldn't do any, whatever the, after I'm looking for somebody's trumpet or croc or making lunch or screaming at people, I can't return to whatever that writing space is. So I was done writing every day by 7.45 and that was how I did it. I don't know who that person is now because I cannot find her.”
Ambition often constructs a fragile inauthentic identity
“I think that we've all had that job or that relationship in which we're like, this is a life or death situation, you know, like making this relationship work or not getting fired from this job. And then you do lose a relationship or you do get fired and you're like, wait, once you break the spell and you like are on the street with your potted plant in a box... she's been working so hard on building an identity that is very inauthentic. And she doesn't want to lose it and becomes more and more desperate not to lose it.”
“I actually think when you look at the, what are the movies like? How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30, Devil Wears Prada, like they over-simplify it for sure, but I think they have done a nice job of certain parts of it looking as exciting and as glamorous and as full of access that it really was at the time. I can't speak for now, but I'm not usually offended by them. I think they do what they're supposed to do, which is portray this fantasy world that is selling a fantasy world.”
