Culture and gender writer. Previously at Vox, other bylines at The Toast and the A.V. Club. Not the Ugly Betty character. ConstanceCGrady @ gmail
Joined June 2010
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Today I'm starting The Trick, a newsletter going through every single Agatha Christie novel to analyze how she did it. Volume 1: Death on the Nile
Christie's such a technical writer that close reading her is sort of like looking at all the gears of a watch ticking away. It's such a fun time! constancegrady.substack.com/…
I'm starting a newsletter! Included in the first issue: how graffiti in DC is different from graffiti in NYC
I would love it if you subscribed! Figuring out how to do sustainable cultural criticism in this ecosystem is a real project substack.com/home/post/p-220…
I had such a great time talking about Baby-Sitters Club, love of my youth, with Connecticut Public Radio. They have a full BSC podcast!
First episode is here, it's rad ctpublic.org/podcast/generat…
My last story for Vox is up! I looked at the rise in social deduction games like Blood on the Clocktower. They create a safe space for anti-social behavior like lying — which ironically helps create pro-social bonds.
The kicker in this story is one of my favorite anecdotes I've ever reported, a true delight vox.com/the-highlight/499862…
Constance Grady retweeted
.@constancegrady: "“Tony” shows the evolution of a young man toying with different archetypes of masculinity, deciding where his values lie and determining what it will take for him to live them out." ms.now/opinion/anthony-bourd…
huge thanks to @ZeeshanAleem for connecting me to this great team! ms.now/opinion/anthony-bourd…
All right, here's my first order of business. Like all unemployed arts journalists, I am going to start a newsletter. But I've got a couple options for the focus.
Constance Grady retweeted
terrible news for many reasons but particularly disappointing on the heels of some great publishing industry reporting someone great please hire constance immediately vox.com/culture/499624/middl…
Well, I have been laid off from Vox after 10 years there. It has been the honor and the privilege of a lifetime to get to work with such brilliant people for so long.
So there's an interesting debate happening in publishing that I think people outside the industry don't know about. When kids' reading scores started going down, so did sales of middle-grade books. But the industry disagrees on the cause and effect here.
Because for the past 20 years or so, middle-grade books have also been getting super long! So some people think that kids stopped reading because they stopped being able to find books that were actually suitable to their grade level.
vox.com/culture/499624/middl…
If you have hung out with young kids lately, odds are good that the book they actually like reading is Dog Man: it's short, funny, and full of pictures. Right now, that's where the industry is aiming. vox.com/culture/499624/middl…
