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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The funny thing is, I know the woman who wrote this story - she definitely comes from money, attended private school and has an apartment almost certainly paid for by mommy and daddy. [/quote]

It's an "as told to." The name attached is not the woman it is about[/quote]

I know that - I think it’s funny that it was “told” to someone who embodies all of the things the storyteller hates/envies. [/quote]

Well yes, almost everyone who works in at places like NY Mag (and the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Times, etc.) has a similar background. You can find people who don't, but generally they are diversity hires and are superstars -- non-white, very elite education, plus lots of early success (so they have earned it double or triple how others do, and yet will always be treated by some as less deserving). That's really the only way to break into these fields if you don't have the family funding and connections to go the "traditional route", which is to land a rare and coveted internship at one of those publications, work for nothing or close to nothing for several years, then eventually build enough of a book of work to get a real staff job somewhere that might (might!) pay you a living wage. Or you marry someone richer, or your family keeps supporting you, or you sell out and get an MBA (also funded by family) and go make real money.

I was an exceptional writer in college and that kind of career was definitely my dream, but even I wasn't naive enough to think this was a real career path for someone like me. I wasn't close to good enough to be one of those superstars, and I had zero resources for funding a decade of "building my career". It just wasn't even on the table.

I am mildly surprised the woman who told the story made it all the way through an English program and an MFA without recognizing that the same is generally true of publishing, which is an adjacent field. I wonder if she maybe overestimated her own talent and ability, or didn't realize how common that level of talent/ability is within NY literary circles. There are very, very few "special" talents in that world.[/quote]

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