Mattie Kahn on Writing About Powerful Women and Girls, What It’s Really Like to Be a Freelance Writer, the Experience of Interviewing Celebrities, and What She’d Tell Her Teenage Self

When InStyle’s cover for “The Confidence Issue” came out, I tore through Mattie Kahn’s cover profile on Sharon Stone. Listeners, this is a fantastic article, but when it comes to Mattie Kahn’s writing, that’s just what one comes to expect when it comes to her. Mattie is one of the most published writers today, and after working full-time at outlets like Elle and Glamour, she’s now a full-time freelance writer and has written for literally every publication you can dream of: Vogue, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast Traveler, Time, The Atlantic, Town & Country, New York Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Seventeen, I could go on and on. Today Mattie and I talk about the secrets to a good celebrity interview, what she wishes she knew before going freelance, how telling stories of powerful women and girls is a running theme throughout her work, and about her first book, Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions, which came out in June 2023. The book is about teenage girls involved in activist work and, as the book description reads, is “the untold story of the people who have helped spark America’s most transformative social movements throughout history: teenage girls.” Mattie is a Harvard graduate and, in addition to all of the publications she writes for and her book, she also has a Substack called “Things I Ask My Mother.” Mattie Kahn is very deservedly one of my Women in Power.

 

By Mattie Kahn:

Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions

“Sharon Stone Has Found Her Limit” for InStyle

“Things I Ask My Mother” Substack

 

+ another day of extra picks by female authors!

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin

Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History by Maureen Orth