In this interview, Alissa discusses realizing she wanted something other than the 9-to-5 corporate life, how she made the transition from freelance writer to full-time staff writer, the most valuable thing…
One of my fave bits was this: “I think the most important thing I learned in graduate school was how to write anywhere, under any conditions, and how to eradicate any semblance of preciousness about my writing from my brain.”
It's freeing to stop putting your work on a pedestal and stop treating it like a performance.
One of my fave bits was this: “I think the most important thing I learned in graduate school was how to write anywhere, under any conditions, and how to eradicate any semblance of preciousness about my writing from my brain.”
It's freeing to stop putting your work on a pedestal and stop treating it like a performance.
💯 👏
Yes!! Couldn’t agree more
Love this interview!! 💝
"I didn’t really know any writers or journalists when I was growing up, or not that I can remember."
It made me wonder whether writer is a job title that's overdue for a rethink.
Because the word points us toward the mechanics of the work—the typing, the sentences, the pages.
But that's not what the best writers actually do.
A cook isn't an assembler of ingredients. An architect isn't a stacker of bricks.
The real work is making meaning. Finding patterns where others see noise. Taking ideas that feel invisible and making them impossible to miss.
Maybe meaning-maker gets closer. Or sense-maker. Not because writing doesn't matter, but because writing is the medium, not the craft.