Let’s talk about the Spread

Sure, you could call the Spread a newsletter. We prefer to think of it as a weekly mini-magazine packed with smart, funny, weird, deeply reported, knock-your-socks-off stories.

In 2020, Rachel Baker and I put our heads together. This wasn’t the first time: We’d been “workwives” for years as editors at Elle. In our post-Elle lives, we were watching the print editions of our former sister/competitor titles drop like flies (Adieu to Glamour, Nylon, Allure, Self, Marie Claire, InStyle—Rachel, who did I forget?). Yet we found ourselves overwhelmed by the vast array of “women’s media” (a term we defined very loosely) that was still out there, competing for our brain space—and our dollars. Scores of general-interest publications were increasingly tackling ideas and subjects once considered lady-mag territory. Plus, there were all the women’s sites, the untold hours of podcasts, the nonstop book launches! Indeed there was more women’s media coming at us, from a broader, more diverse, and more intriguing array of voices than ever before. Readers just needed a place to find it. So we made the Spread. Now, thousands of subscribers tune in once a week for all angst, obsession, and oddball observations Rachel and I can heap into an issue. Join us!