I grew up in New York City, which is like attending a boot camp for learning to adapt to change. Much-loved neighbors, shops, and eateries come and go, leaving me forever nursing the ache of the latest departure and on the lookout for new discoveries. Finding a new favorite coffee shop or music venue seems to start a countdown. First, there’s the exciting, buzzy stage. Then it will be overrun by newcomers—by some sweet magic I myself am never part of this human deluge—then it will decline, and eventually shutter. And that’s the best-case scenario. Plenty of my favorite spots acquired few regulars and no hype, closing after a short time and memorialized only in locals’ mental maps of what every neighborhood storefront used to be.
For years, I channeled this appreciation for all things new into a career as a journalist, constantly hunting for the latest stories in art and culture. I found that though an article may have a limited shelf life, grappling with ideas and trying to translate them to the page makes them endure. There’s no better way to imprint something upon your mind than to spend hours or weeks trying to write about it. The world moves more and more quickly, but the ideas I write about are ideas I get to keep. The same holds as a reader—truly great writing sticks with you, no matter how ephemeral the subject or how embedded it is in context now long gone.
That’s why I’m so excited to join Reed Words, an agency that truly understands the power of language. Newness is never in short supply, luckily for me, but permanence is harder to come by. Great writing is one of the few things that can really last forever.