What Should I Ask Jane Pratt When I Interview Her at Open Secrets Live?

Come ask Jane Pratt your own questions and hear from over 35 memoir authors, essayists, storytellers, and editors at this personal storytelling summit I'm hosting May 3 in New York

I’m TERRIBLE at selfies but wanted to share my comfy Sassy t shirt; they’re available here, with part of the proceeds going to Planned Parenthood and Reproductive for All

For someone who gets nervous about a lot of things, I’m not actually that nervous about interviewing

Jane Pratt

, editor of

Another Jane Pratt Thing

and former editor of Sassy, Jane, and xoJane, on Saturday, May 3 at Open Secrets Live, the New York City personal storytelling summit I’m organizing as the first event for

Open Secrets Magazine

, with over 35 speakers, including memoir authors, essayists, storytellers, and editors from Another Jane Pratt Thing, HuffPost Personal,

Narratively

, HarperCollins, and Random House (the full agenda and discounted tickets are available here). It’s surprising because I get nervous about making phone calls to anyone I don’t know, and speaking in public has always terrified me, which you probably can tell if you’ve ever seen me do it.

I think part of why I’m pretty chill about it is actually the reason I’d expected to be nervous: I’ve been reading Pratt’s words for over 30 years, since I was a teenage Sassy subscriber, and then an adult Jane subscriber and xoJane reader and contributor, and now reader and follower of Another Jane Pratt Thing. There’s a paradox at the heart of all this: I feel like I know Jane, as, I’m sure, so many of her longtime readers do, precisely because she shares so much of herself in her writing (there’s a section of AJPT called Jane’s Phone, after all), yet of course, I don’t actually know her (and she actually doesn't consider herself a writer even though she writes).

I know many things about her, because I’ve been reading her writing and interviews with her, and now follow her on Substack Notes and read her often funny comments and tangents in the intros to Another Jane Pratt Thing essays, like this one about who’s the Worst Mom in the World.

It’s not just the big things she’s shared that give me the impression that I know more about her than I do some of my friends, or at least, that I know different things about her, the kind that may not come up in casual conversation but that people will share on social media or blogs or, in her case, editor letters to readers; it’s also little things, like the fact that she enjoys eating mold. I’m so fascinated by that I may have to ask her more about it onstage because I’ve never heard of anyone liking mold before, so it stood out.

I believe that often first-person writing gets dismissed as oversharing, self-involved, and unimportant. I’m not going to argue that every piece of personal writing is insightful and impactful, but I believe it has the potential to be. Memoirs have been written for much, much longer than the modern era (as in, 397 A.D.). For some of the same reasons people tune in to vloggers and reality shows, readers flock to first-person writing because it gives them insights into how another person thinks and feels and looks at the world. It makes people feel seen. That’s a huge through line in the comments I see at Open Secrets, in essays about being tired of being single or meeting on a dating app or embracing radical pleasure or struggling with mental health and social media. When people leave long comments, or say a variation on “This is me,” or “Thank you for sharing this,” I know I’ve done my job as an editor: to make readers feel something.

I feel that push/pull, being known but not entirely known paradox myself, because I’ve been writing publicly about my life for just as long as I’ve been reading about other people’s lives, starting with my precocious teenage letters to the editor on up through many, many personal essays (here’s a highlight reel of my favorites so far). From the writing side, I’m well aware that even when I write very personal pieces, they’re curated to share the facts the way I want to share them, to use my voice and perspective to shape a narrative about my life that may or may not be shared by others involved in the same story. I also may change my perspective down the road, but when I write a personal essay, I do my best to encapsulate my feelings at the time I’m writing it, or relive how I was feeling in the past. Of course I want people to read my words and react to them, but I’ve learned that I can’t control those reactions or what they take from my writing, and that no matter what I write about, I’ll be judged and misunderstood and found inferior by some readers.

So I’m very curious about what Jane will say about her pioneering of the It Happened to Me column, which lives on at Another Jane Pratt Thing (and which I’ll be contributing to soon, hopefully; I never count my writing chickens before they hatch into published chickens, to torture a phrase).

I also love that Jane is so devoted to the first-person form as an editor, and has used it in all her publications, which is a large part of what has drawn people to them: that sense that they know the writers. As the told The New York Times in September 2024:

When we started Sassy, it was because people weren’t telling those first person confessional stories. That was revolutionary at the time. But that changed. Now it’s everywhere. It’s too much. But I still think there’s a need for stories that are not getting told, told by people that are not getting heard, and in a place that is supportive, inclusive and where it’s not there to be picked apart.

I’d love to know what you’d like me to ask Jane Pratt during our opening keynote interview! I can’t guarantee I can ask everything, but I’ll do my best. Leave a comment here or email me at opensecretsmag at gmail dot com with “Jane question” in the subject live.

If you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, here’s a special Open Secrets Live Eventbrite link where you can save $10 off the $35 ticket price through February 28! There are currently 45 tickets left and I expect them to sell out.

Looking for your next book to read? Our Open Secrets Live bookseller, Queens bookstore Kew & Willow Books, has a list of books by our speakers you can purchase online or get them at the event on May 3 and get yours signed! I’m reading You’ll Never Believe This: A Life of Lies, Second Tries, and Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist by

Kari Ferrell

, who was dubbed the “Hipster Grifter” in the media, but her story is so much more complex, about race, adoption, mental health, body image, bullying, belonging and community, and more (I’m only about a third of the way through so far, so haven’t even gotten into her adulthood), and fascinating, and also told in such a hilarious way I keep wanting to read passages aloud to someone. Plus I’m a sucker for a book with a long subtitle. Kari will be on our Open Secrets Live Identity panel and I can’t wait to hear what she has to say!

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