Alumna's magazine cover story hits it big
Here on the Hill, where women represent a slight majority of the student body, some already sense the disparity between the sexes in terms of the dating pool. But in today’s world, where women are outperforming men more and more in education and career advancement, singlehood for women is more common than ever.
This trend is one that Kate Bolick ’95 explores deeply in her article “All the Single Ladies,” the November cover story of The Atlantic. Using herself as an example, Bolick examines the gender gap in marriage and the increased frequency of single women on both a national and international scale.
“The Atlantic asked me to write the article,” Bolick said. “They wanted me to examine the worsening possibilities for men and bettering for women and what this means for dating and marriage.”
Bolick, who currently works as a freelance writer, picked up the assignment but quickly doubled its length—the article came in at a whopping 13,000 words and grew into the cover story that it currently is.
“I went into it cold and had six to seven weeks to write the article. I had to figure out which experts to talk to and figure out where I wanted to go [with the article]. I looked at economists, historians, psychologists, and then had to figure out who are quacks and who are real experts to figure out who’s the best to interview,” Bolick said.
To write the piece, Bolick did a lot of ground reporting in order to determine how to illustrate the ideas she had been trying to wrap her head around. This included four separate trips to California, Pennsylvania, Brookline, Mass. and Amsterdam to meet with various experts as well as real people.
But what really brings the piece to life is Bolick’s ability to relate to her material. “I wanted to personalize the material and choose which of my own ideas and experiences to fold in,” she said. “I’ve done it before, and I don’t find it to be very personal; just using some facts doesn’t feel at all revealing, so it’s odd to have the reaction so strong to the personal part [of the article].”
Using her personal experiences in the dating world doesn’t faze Bolick. “I was using myself as an example to illustrate these ideas—I was a character in my own story.”
The response to Bolick’s piece has been great, albeit very unexpected. Since the story’s publication, Bolick has made six television appearances, spoke for several radio shows and is scheduled for a few public talks. Most notably, Sony created a television series option for Bolick’s story. “It’s something people want to talk about, a conversation people want to have,” Bolick said.
But before Bolick was ever publishing cover stories for New York City magazines, she was a student at Colby. An American studies major with a creative writing minor in poetry, Bolick thought she’d be a poet after leaving the Hill. But after school ended, she got a job at The Atlantic as an assistant, back when the magazine was still located in Boston. As her job grew to include interviews and Q&As with authors, Bolick realized that she “wanted to do more essay writing, not journalism per se.”
Later she attended New York University (NYU) on a scholarship for a cultural criticism graduate program where she focused on literary criticism and essay writing. While she was at NYU, she began writing for publications such as The New York Times, Vogue and The Boston Globe before exploring her options as a freelance writer.
Bolick temporarily ended her freelancing streak to become an editor of domino, an interior design women’s magazine. “I’d been writing as a freelancer, and this was not at all in line with what I’d been doing,” she said. The glossy, consumer-driven magazine was a product of Condé Nast Publications and ran for four years, but the magazine folded three years ago due to the recession.
Since then, Bolick has returned to freelancing for publications such as Slate and The Wall Street Journal, as well as operating as the culture editor for Veranda magazine.
The growth that Bolick has experienced since leaving the College shows that students don’t have to limit themselves to what they studied on the Hill when applying for jobs after graduation. “I was so obsessed with poetry that I did nothing really writing-oriented at Colby,” Bolick confessed.
Instead, Bolick picked up most of her journalistic knowledge at her first job at The Atlantic. “It required research, editing and gave me the rudimentary skills of journalism,” she said. “Writing, editing, being succinct—at first I didn’t feel confident, but I wrote a lot and figured out what I wanted to do.” Through writing, Bolick found that she was able to express herself, a passion she has fostered since her time at the College.
But she has not forgotten her time on the Hill. “I have very positive memories of friends and interesting people,” she said. She is especially grateful for the time spent with retired Professor Richard Moss, John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History, Emeritus. “He shaped my enthusiasm and made me start thinking about American culture both in the modern day and through a historical lens,” Bolick said. “Which is a very natural, exciting and important thing to me.”
Lindsay Putnam '12
