Girlboss asked some of our favorite magazine editors, past and present, to dish about everything from their worst jobs to their biggest breaks to the books that changed the way they see the world.
What exactly do magazine editors… do? Editing is way more behind-the-scenes and elusive than other media jobs—and what it means exactly varies widely from place to place. Typically, magazine editors help determine their outlet’s strategy and coverage areas, solicit pitches and assign articles, and work with writers to get their pieces in tip-top shape. We brought in a major braintrust of editors from magazines around the country to share how they spend their days—and what they’re still learning.
Did you always want to work in media? If not, what was your dream job when you were younger?
“No; as a young child I wanted to be an astronaut and then an astrophysicist. I didn’t become fully immersed in words until I immigrated to the US from the Philippines at 15 and became determined to master English and learn everything I can about American culture.”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
“Yes! I always loved fashion, and for a long time as a kid I wanted to be a fashion designer. Then, I realized in my mid-teens that being a fashion designer (and coming up with new collections every 6 months or less) was not actually what suited me best. What I was really in love with were the magazines that told the story of fashion, art, beauty, and fantasy. After I realized I could get a degree in journalism, my dreams and career path made so much more sense. In my college applications I said I wanted to be an editor-in-chief, like Anna Wintour. So funny thinking back on that now! I did in fact become an editor-in-chief, just not of a print magazine.”
—Katie Hintz-Zambrano, co-founder and editor, Mother
“To be honest, I didn’t even know there was a job that involved being a beauty editor (until I met one!). Growing up, I wanted to be a chiropractor because—wait for it—I loved cracking my back and knuckles (ha!).”
—Heather Muir, beauty director, Real SimpleandHealth
What was the most valuable lesson you learned from the worst job you ever had, and what was that job?
“I temped once at a call center where we were supposed to ask people if they had a toll-free number. Once we logged the person’s answer, the system would hang up and dial someone else. (I think we were calling from a competitive company to source leads for telemarketers. Ugh.) Anyway, this one guy would say, ‘Hello! Do you have a toll-free 800 or 888 toll-free number?’ Over and over and over again. The redundancy of hearing ‘toll-free’ a million times during the 8-hour shift taught me how type-A and detail-oriented I am. It’s a good skill set for an editor. I told the temp agency that I couldn’t go back. It would have killed me. Sometimes the fantasy of having a low-stress, completely mindless job seems appealing, and then I remember Mr. Toll-Free and I’m like, ‘I’ll take the stress and intellectual stimulation please!’”
—Annemarie Conte, executive editor, Woman’s Day Magazine
“I was at a fashion start-up for about 8 months, and learned some of the biggest lessons of my career. The most important one was knowing when it’s time to call it quits and understanding that not every job is going to be a perfect fit. Walking away from that role was one of the hardest things I’ve done because I don’t give up, but it led me to a dream job at J.Crew that immediately followed.”
—Nandita Khanna, editorial projects director, goop
“From selling prom dresses and wedding gowns, to scooping ice cream, to selling hand scrub at Bath & Body Works and eventually waitressing, the most valuable lesson I learned was to be kind to people. In any job, things are bound to go wrong, but if you work hard and are genuinely nice to people, you’ll always come out on top.”
—Heather Muir, beauty director, Real SimpleandHealth
What do you consider to be your first “big break” in your career?
“Oddly, getting laid off from Condé Nast Traveler was really the turning point for me, in so many ways. I had just started my job there and was fresh off a major job hunt, so I was just exhausted from all the interviews and edit tests and didn’t feel ready to jump back into it. Plus, I had a small severance package because I’d been at Condé Nast for a while. So I decided to give freelancing a try and that opened me up to all kinds of things I didn’t think were possible, including writing full-length feature stories for major glossy magazines and seeing my byline in the Wall Street Journal. It was hugely confidence-building and I enjoyed it so much that I was able to be really picky about the next move I made, because I could have happily been freelancing for quite a long time.”
—Anna Maltby, deputy editor, Real Simple
“My first major break was doing my first international feature assignment for VICE Magazine in January 2015, after having written just one other feature entirely on spec. That work has evolved into the feature documentary Call Her Ganda, which premieres at Tribeca Film Festival in April.”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
“I wasted a lot of time early in my career. I was hired as a features assistant at Vogue right out of college and was really intimidated and deeply millennial about the whole thing, and I didn’t last long. After that I did a bunch of random things. Then I went to journalism school during the height of the recession, just as many media properties were folding. By that point, I was already in my later 20s and becoming terrified that the career I wanted just wasn’t going to happen for me. That’s when a professor connected me with Meghan O’Rourke, who was the culture editor at Slate. She hired me as an intern to help launch Double X, the women’s site Slate had for a while. The Double X team helped me get my first job out of graduate school, and then that job helped me get the women’s editor role at The Huffington Post, and suddenly I was on my way.”
—Margaret Wheeler Johnson, director of features and brand initiatives, Bustle Digital Group
What’s the first thing you do in the morning to get your workday started?
“Check my email on my phone (while in bed).”
—Katie Hintz-Zambrano, co-founder and editor, Mother
“I’m big on lists. I check my list from the day before and figure out what I want to accomplish for the day. The nature of my job means that I’m in a ton of meetings and when I’m sitting at my desk, people need to talk to me about things that come up. It’s rare that I get a stretch of time to work on something without interruption, so I try not to live and die by my list, but it does help stop things from falling through the cracks. I also scroll through Instagram and skim through the newsletters I subscribe to (I’m looking at you, Girlboss).”
—Annemarie Conte, executive editor, Woman’s Day Magazine
“I grew up in a farm and was used to rising with the roosters at 4:30 a.m. for a lot of my life, so my brain is usually primed and ready to go first thing in the morning. So I either quickly plan my day on my journal (I use the Best Self Journal) or if my brain is itching to work I do a working block of 1-2 hours and then plan my day. I do my best to keep my mornings free of meetings because it’s my most productive time.”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
What do you get most distracted by at work?
“The endless amounts of food that come out of the Woman’s Day test kitchen. There could be a giant vat of pasta salad one day and a four-tier chocolate fudge cake the next. It is a typical office breakroom times 1000.”
—Annemarie Conte, executive editor, Woman’s Day Magazine
“I oversee beauty at two magazines—Real Simple and Health—so my biggest distraction is constantly being pulled in two directions. Instead of having one set of meetings, sales calls, stories, etc., to focus on, I have two. That and the forever growing sea of beauty products scattered around my desk that I never have enough time to sift through. #beautyeditorproblems”
—Heather Muir, beauty director, Real Simple&Health
“Reading! I am constantly combing the news for story ideas, and there is definitely a fine line between the things I need to be reading right now… and the things that should probably wait until I’m done for the day.”
—Kim Tranell, executive editor at Scholasticand former editor at Glamour and Seventeen
What two or three books would you say have had the biggest impact on who you are today?
“The Young Children’s Encyclopedia Britannica, which my grandfather in the States bought for me and brought to the Philippines when I was a kid, and I read cover-to-cover multiple times as I was learning English; Huckleberry Finn, because I read it the first year I got to America and it gave me an early awareness of the long history of racism in this country; and Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, which was dense and hard but taught me that I had the ability to mess with my gender.”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
“Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now totally shook up my worldview; I wish everyone would read it. It’s a little new agey but very convincing. And one of my favorite novels, Run with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams, has a line I’ve quoted often, especially when I used to manage interns and work with other well-meaning but unruly people. It’s a dad talking about his mischievous son and he says, “He’s a good boy, he takes instruction well; I just can’t think of enough things to tell him not to do.”
—Anna Maltby, deputy editor, Real Simple
“After seeing A Wrinkle in Time this past weekend, I remembered what a profound impact this book had on me—its parallel worlds weren’t closed off to Meg just because she was a girl. Then, Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding. It’s written off as a silly rom-com, but if you go back and re-read it, you’ll find how much smart social and political observation it contained hidden between the funniest dialogue in any book I’ve ever read. And finally, The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. I am in awe of Shonda’s ability to create fictional worlds that strike such a profound emotional chord, and got so much inspiration in her words about not closing yourself off to this one.”
—Meghann Foye, author of Meternityand former editor at Redbookand Seventeen
What is your greatest strength in your role as an editor?
“I am easily distracted and have less-than-perfect reading comprehension, which makes me sound like a terrible editor—in reality, I think I probably read stories like a typical reader. If something bores me or doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a good indication that we might need to tighten things up so our reader can get more out of the piece.”
—Anna Maltby, deputy editor, Real Simple
“My ability to be decisive. I’m exposed to so many products, experts, and services, it’s easy to be overwhelmed but I’ve learned what my readers want and become a master at cutting through the clutter. So while I’m decisive at work, I ask my husband to make all of our personal life decisions (like where we’re eating, etc.) so I get a break at home.”
—Heather Muir, beauty director, Real SimpleandHealth
“I have a good ear. Writing is like music. You have to hear it.”
—Margaret Wheeler Johnson, director of features and brand initiatives, Bustle Digital Group
What is your greatest challenge?
“Not having walls. The only people who think open office plans are a good idea are the ones who are never at their desks.”
—Annemarie Conte, executive editor, Woman’s Day Magazine
“Switching between the inward-facing duties associated with my role (think: sitting at my computer deeply immersed in writing or editing) and the outward-facing parts of the role (meetings, meetings, meetings about bigger-picture strategy, marketing, etc.). It can be jarring to go back and forth, and incredibly challenging when I can’t find chunks of uninterrupted time to work on a piece.”
—Kim Tranell, executive editor at Scholasticand former editor at Glamour and Seventeen
“Unplugging and NOT working. But having a child helps with that. My 5-year-old is a constant reminder that there is so much more than work. Play, connection, and being present is so important.”
—Katie Hintz-Zambrano, co-founder and editor, Mother
What’s your go-to method for winding down after a long day?
“We got a ping pong table recently so I often play ping pong with my partner or my sister, who I live with. I was on my high school table tennis team so I have some skills!”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
“I wish I could tell you that I take long bubble baths or drink chamomile tea or do some light vinyasa, but I’m really terrible at winding down. I’m the Ariana Huffington pre-broken-cheekbone cautionary tale.”
—Annemarie Conte, executive editor, Woman’s Day Magazine
“A marathon catch-up dinner with a friend. Or a glass of rosé. Preferably both.”
—Nandita Khanna, editorial projects director, goop
What’s the best part of your day?
“I’ve been loving getting up at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. and working on my new novel for an hour before I do anything else. It’s like I’ve discovered the secret to escaping my own inner critic—I don’t think she gets up that early!”
—Meghann Foye, author of Meternityand former editor at Redbook Magazine, Seventeen Magazine,and others
“Picking up my kid, or arriving home when my husband has already picked him up, and seeing his face light up when I walk in. His little smile just kills me.”
—Anna Maltby, deputy editor, Real Simple
“Helping women feel good about themselves. I love reading comments from women on Instagram who message me about how one of the products I recommended helped them solve a problem or one of the tips I’ve shared has been a lifesaver.”
—Heather Muir, beauty director, Real SimpleandHealth
What is the one skill you wished you’d learned before becoming an editor?
“I wish I would have focused a bit more during my photography and Photoshop/graphic arts classes. All of the settings on fancy cameras still really confuse me, even though I’ve taken multiple photography courses. Those skills are so important in digital media and now social media.”
—Katie Hintz-Zambrano, co-founder and editor, Mother
“Copyediting and grammar. I would have avoided anxiety about typos and put more work out there sooner!”
—Meghann Foye, author of Meternityand former editor at Redbookand Seventeen
“Knowing when to say no.”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
How would you describe your job in five words?
“Busy, collaborative, creative, engrossing, carb-forward.”
—Margaret Wheeler Johnson, managing editor, Romper
“Energizing, grueling, life-giving, draining, everything.”
—Meredith Talusan, executive editor, them.
“You’re late for your meeting.”
—Annemarie Conte, executive editor, Woman’s Day Magazine
