newsletter #26: interview w/ writer & author alyssa shelasky
"I'm not a star fucker."
Hi reader! I hope you’re doing well today. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, but I’m coming to you with a special newsletter featuring an interview with writer and author Alyssa Shelasky, editor of New York Magazine’s Sex Diaries column and author of now-available memoir This Might Be Too Personal: And Other Intimate Stories.
A bit more about the book before you jump in: Among other things, Shelasky’s writing (and IRL) voice is witty, entertaining, and honest. This Might Be Too Personal is a lively, page-turning read, though the book is not without its fair share of darker, emotional moments—like broken-off engagements, issues of consent and, perhaps most importantly, the throes of single motherhood via an anonymous sperm donor.
As someone who is (for better or worse) embedded in the media landscape, I also particularly enjoyed that this book gives readers a glimpse into the glitzy, party-esque (though admittedly controversial) aspect of the industry through stories of press trips, celebrity interviews, perks, and more. In short, if you’re looking for a jaunty and relatable read to get you through long summer subway rides or sunny park blanket days, consider picking up Shelasky’s memoir.
For more on the book, you can read a piece about Shelasky in The New York Times, or an excerpt from This Might Be Too Personal in The Cut. Shelasky’s Sex Diaries column is also being turned into an HBO docuseries, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, I hope our conversation below proves to be insightful. Enjoy.
(Content trigger warning: mention of sexual assault.)
What was it like to write this memoir? Was it at all emotionally exhausting? What was your writing process like writing this during the pandemic?
There's no way to talk about this book without talking about the fact that it's a pandemic book. It was excruciating, and I had an excruciating work year. I had this book deal, which was everything I wanted, and I have this HBO series coming out about my Sex Diaries column. Again, it was everything I had prayed for, but it all happened at once, during the pandemic, with two kids at home and not a lot of help in terms of childcare. Both were kind of very high stakes projects—like, works of a lifetime—for me.
The good news was, I didn't have time or energy to obsess over the pages in the book or to question if I was and was not comfortable. I was just writing as fast as I could, as honestly as I could to get it done, frankly. It behooved me in the end, because I was so depleted that I didn't have the energy to say “Shit, how does this make me look? What is this person going to say?” Or any of those insecurities that creep in as a writer. I had no space for that in my head. I was just writing the truth and not looking back. The book is pretty raw. Hopefully funny and sexy, too, but I think it also is raw and a little bit sad and tense in places. That's just a reflection of who I was at the time when I was trying to make my deadline.
Yes, absolutely. It ebbed and flowed through emotions and the gravity of different experiences well. In the beginning of the book, I felt like there were a few different celebrity run-ins—by chance and through your work as a journalist—that shifted your outlook on life. What do you think it is about proximity to celebrity that can make us a little more introspective?
It's strange to me that I've had so many celebrity run-ins. Yes, I’ve worked for Us Weekly and People Magazine, but beyond that, in day-to-day moments, I'm not a star fucker. I'm not even necessarily interested in celebrities.
Even the other day, my friend got us tickets to see Plaza Suite with Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. We found out Matthew Broderick had to cancel because he has COVID, and there's going to be an understudy. And I’m like, “Well then she obviously has COVID, too. How does she not?” But Sarah Jessica Parker was still on stage.
Then, in the middle of the play, when she's magnetic and luminous and everything you hope she'll be, she sneezes. I turned to my friend Todd and I said, “And Carrie Bradshaw just gave me COVID.” And guess what? She got COVID, it was reported by the time we were home, and she canceled her next show. I didn't get it, but I was like, this is just how it goes for me. It's strange.
I think I'm always looking for magical moments and good stories. If you are open to it, you're going to have these extraordinary moments. I also live in Brooklyn Heights, where when I'm dropping my kids at school on any given day I bump into Keri Russell, Peter Dinklage, Ethan Hawke.
I wanted to touch on your former See Alyssa Date column in Glamour, where the magazine asked you to write about various dating experiences as you tried to find a husband, even though this wasn’t a “goal” that particularly resonated with you. In the book, you wrote that at this time, which was earlier in your career, you were “presenting as a woman I was not” (13). Specifically, someone who valued marriage above all. I feel like many young writers take on personas or assignments they don’t identify with to get bylines and experience. And especially as women, I feel like any opportunity to write personal essays and stories about your own life are a way to get your foot in the editorial door. Do you have any thoughts on this?
I hope my instinct is right and the new generation of female writers is empowered and knows that it's actually cool to be tough and to advocate for yourself. I'm not 22 anymore, but the 22-year-olds I'm watching seem to be badass women who would never take on a column that made them feel uncomfortable. Granted, I'm sure that it's not true for everyone, and sometimes you got to pay the bills and make a living and take on an assignment. But I do think, slash hope, that it’s over, the time where you write stuff that makes you uneasy.
In terms of the vulnerability of it all, regarding men versus women, that's such an interesting point, because I still feel that way. I have a pretty good career. I have a lot of opportunities. I also feel like the way that I'm trying to get my ego boosted, or pat on the back, or likes or whatever, is from completely putting myself out there and not holding anything back. That's just the recipe for me. It's just like, this thing happened, I need to work through it, I'm going to write an essay, I'm going to feel better, I'm going to get paid, I'm going to pay my rent. Hopefully it will all be a teachable experience and I'll be a wiser, better woman for it in the end. That is literally how my brain is wired, at this point.
I don't know many men who have had a similar experience. I can't speak for men, though, but I agree with you. If I were giving you advice, like if you're like an 18-year-old at NYU, it would be my natural inclination to be like “Find something deeply personal. Write your heart out. Don't give a fuck about what anybody's gonna say. And hit send.” And that's very interesting. I don't know if I would give that same advice to a man, because of my own internal biases. I also don't really care about men. Like I actually don't really care about most men's burgeoning careers. They’ll be fine, whatever.
One line that I audibly laughed at came after your first book party for Apron Anxiety. As you were reflecting on this major accomplishment, you wrote, “I saw myself as not an entirely unsuccessful writer. And as, yeah fuck it, an Artist” (42). Capital A artist. I laughed reading that line, because it did resonate, and I find that people are sometimes hesitant to call themselves artists. People roll their eyes at the word, even though I think it’s an honor to call yourself an artist. Do you still consider yourself an artist? How would you describe your art, if you could?
I definitely do consider myself an artist. And the minute I started doing that without apology was the minute I felt extremely free to be exactly who I was. It's such a little thing, but it's life changing. Being an artist is like a filter through which you see the world, to me. I'm sure a world-famous fine artist who's producing masterpieces would disagree, but I don't care. It’s a part of my identity.
About how you felt after your first childbirth, you wrote: “Though I was undergoing major abdominal surgery and subconsciously traumatized by the preeclampsia and only moments away from the emotional earthquake that was new motherhood, I can say without a doubt that there was not one second of childbirth that I wished for a husband to be standing there beside me. The thought never even crossed my mind” (112). That said, now that you have a partner and you are parenting with another person, have your thoughts on single motherhood changed at all?
I definitely still stand by the belief that there's not one way to approach motherhood, and there's certainly not one road to a happy family. I was only a single mom for seven months, and those seven months were glorious. But if you have ever been around infants, you know that there's not much to do. It was a very romantic time in my life, because all I really had to do was stroll around Brooklyn with my baby, sing to her, get my work done, get some sleep where I could, and just love her with all my heart. Reality kicks in when your kids get older, and there are many times now when I think about how impossible it must be for single moms, and I worship them more than ever.
But I had a very luxurious experience as a single mom, both in my pregnancy and as a new mom. If you said to me right now “I'm thinking about being a single mom by choice,” I would march you straight to my fertility doctor and get you pregnant. I still think any woman who wants to have a baby and feels the time is now, there's no reason for them to wait for a man. I know more people are on board with that these days. That's really exciting to me. But if you were like, “I have no village, I have no family, I don’t make a lot of money, and probably will never make a lot of money,” we would have to sit down and figure out how you will learn to survive. But, I would still have you pregnant by the end of the month.
I wanted to touch on when you were struggling after the birth of your first child. The doctors were giving you lots of medications, and emotionally and hormonally you were in an understandably tough mental state. In the midst of this, your mother says something that hurts your feelings. You wrote: “My mother said what felt like the cruelest thing anyone has ever said to me. ‘Oh, come on, Alyssa. I thought you were stronger than this’” (117). While this was a point of contention for you both in the book, you also write about a deep closeness you have with your mother. I find that, as women, it’s often our mothers who can toss us insults that hurt the most. What do you make of this dynamic?
That was a painful moment. On a personal level, I couldn’t have done any of this without my mom. I think my mother will live to be 110, but if and when she passes, the only thing that's gonna get me through it is two things: I'm going to write a real book about relationships with your mother. And I'm going to move to California, because right now we all live together in New York.
The motherhood shit is so complicated. I just said this to a friend yesterday who's struggling, and her mom said something that derailed her. I was being a bit obnoxious probably, but I said: “Until you stop wanting and needing acceptance from your mother, you will never be your true self.” That is so much easier said than done, but I’ve worked hard to live my life that way. I love my mother deeply. She is definitely my best friend. I am who I am because of her. But in the end, I have to not care about her acceptance and I have to create boundaries. In the book, that was a moment in my journey where I was too exhausted and medicated to handle myself with grace, and I just fell apart.
After experiencing assault at the hands of a powerful man, you wrote: “What contorted my brain even worse was this: I worried people would say that I asked for it. I hate that my mind went there…Now, I was a well-known love and sex writer whose day job entailed collecting stories about blow jobs and rim jobs. So, yeah, surely there was enough dirt on me to argue that I was a slut who sent mixed messages. At least that’s what the shame-demons inside my head said” (139). I feel like this is something that women who are very open about sexuality experience quite often. I also understand why you decided not to report this man given the immense toll it often takes on the victim. That said, I’m wondering if you could speak more to how being open about sexuality can be conflated with consent, and perhaps your thoughts on not pursuing legal recourse?
That was the easiest chapter for me to write, because I have replayed the incident so many times in specifics with various friends and lawyers. I didn't have to consult with friends about the memory of it all. It was razor sharp. It was easy for me to write. But it was also the hardest for me to publish, simply because I was scared, and I’m still a little bit scared. It takes so much courage to speak out against one of these powerful men, more courage than I ever realized until I actually started to play it out in my head and consider worst case scenarios, which is what you have to do when you're writing personal stories. I consulted with a lawyer who was one of the fiercest, pro-female #MeToo attorneys in the country. She was wonderful, of course, and very helpful, but her takeaway at the end was: “This is a scary motherfucker, and if you were my daughter, I would tell you to stay away.” These powerful men have huge legal teams. I worked really hard to tell the story in a truthful way, and then at some point, I made the choice not to worry about it. I definitely said to myself “Don't write it, just don't include it in the book, it's causing you so much anxiety.” But it felt wrong and misleading to tell all these stories about how cool my career is and how glamorous these experiences have been without sharing the dark side, too. But, I appreciate you acknowledging that many people who have named their predators have suffered tremendously as a result, which is so fucked up.
Do you have any advice for young artists who want to channel their experiences into art, or who want to take a chance on themselves in a creative field?
The advice I would give is the advice I'm still giving myself, which is just to fight. Fight for your voice to be heard. Fight for your stories to be read. For the money you deserve. I'm very fucking confrontational, and that's how I get what I want. Treat people well and do the right thing and make the right choices, but you stay tough and fight for your career. Nothing comes easy. Even now at my level, you blink and you could lose a column, or a TV deal, or an opportunity. You gotta hustle. And beneath all of that is just a tireless belief in yourself.