Straight Line

I’ve always thought that if you follow the rules, you’re going to get the results. If you aim high, you’ll get high. But, people make mistakes–they screw up–and sometimes you don’t have the choice to start over. Sometimes, you have to learn to take life in a totally different direction and no matter how hard [...]

10 block radius

One of the first lessons a writer learns is to write what she sees. But, I’ve been feeling for quite some time now that I’ve exhausted that approach. See, I am a real Queens (New York) girl. I was born and raised within a 10 block radius. The farthest I’ve gone is my high [...]

Welcome, Ibrahim

My childhood friend, ‘B’,  just gave birth to her first child, Ibrahim, this morning. She is the first person that I’ve grown up  that has performed this miracle. Though, I shouldn’t be shocked (I’ve had 9 months to get used to the idea), I am.
B and I have been friends almost all of our lives, [...]

Teenage fashion bloggers turn coveted editors during Fashion Week

The other day my sister and I were having a discussion on how we’re sort of the ‘in-between’ generation when it comes to the World Wide Web. As a 25-year old and 23-year-old, we’re old enough to remember a world where the Internet did not dominate our lives but young enough to be completely inundiated [...]

I’m not a sellout

With magazine journalism down in the dumps, many journalists and editors are looking at alternative career paths but I never thought I’d be one of them. It’s certainly not uncommon for editors and writers to make the switch to public relations, marketing, advertising or corporate communications but I always saw this as a last resort (as [...]

Down but definitely not out not

The freelance job didn’t extend my gig until next month; my last day is tomorrow. They hired a bunch of interns (for free, of course) so they can make do without me. To be honest, I’m quite relieved simply because this job was boring and drained me. It had no writing or editing involved, only [...]

Diagnosis: Writer’s Fear

Most new writers are told to write about what they know or are curious about. My latest assigment is on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome for a major women’s magazine and as I’m doing the research tonight, I am freaking out.
PCOS is a hormonal disease that approximately 10% of women deal with. Symptoms like excessive hair loss, [...]

Media Depression

The world might be going through a recession, but the media industry is definitely going through a depression.
As I was waiting for the elevator at my freelance job at the online magazine (which totally sucks by the way, despite being a major women’s lifestyle magazine!), I realized there was no way I could leave journalism [...]

Try Freedom

Writing is hard work. And the hardest part of it has been the inability to write. The constant facebookin’, chatting,  job searching, online shopping makes it so hard to actually write for a solid twenty minutes. Salon.com writer Rebecca Traister discovered a software called ‘Freedom’, invented by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Ph.D. candidate Fred Stutzman, that [...]

Back to my roots

Sunehra: golden or beautiful.
Sunehra was the name of a little girl I met when I was in high school. She was one of the most adorable kids I’ve ever met, with one of the most beautiful names I’ve ever heard. I’ve always hated my name (Jennifer is so bland and boring; my parents could’ve given [...]