Toggle Menu

An Appreciative Goodbye

Contributor Jessica Valenti says farewell to The Nation.

Jessica Valenti

April 7, 2014

The Nation has always been special to me—when I was growing up, my parents always had a copy on the coffee table, and Katha’s column was some of the first feminist writing I ever read. Being exposed to The Nation from a young age had a real impact on my politics and worldview, and it’s continued to be a place where I’ve learned and grown.

It’s been an honor to write for The Nation, and its incredible editors and writers have been smart, supportive and inspiring. So it’s with a lot of sadness that I say goodbye. Starting April 21, I’ll be writing a daily column at The Guardian.

I am so proud of the work that I’ve done while here—my pieces on topics from rape and domestic violence to abortion politics and pop culture. I’m especially grateful that my editors Emily Douglas and Richard Kim helped me to hone my arguments and strengthen my writing. I’m leaving here a much better writer than I came in, and that’s thanks to them. I am also grateful to The Nation community, online and off, for their passion and support—thank you for reading my work, and for challenging me to be better.

I hope you’ll both follow my writing at its new home and continue to support the wonderful and important work that The Nation does. I know I’ll always have a copy on my coffee table for my daughter to see as she gets older.

Thanks for everything—and goodbye!

Jessica ValentiTwitterJessica Valenti is the author of Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth about Parenting and Happiness. She has also written three other books on feminism, including The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women, which was recently made into a documentary. She is editor of the award-winning anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape and the founder of Feministing.com, which Columbia Journalism Review calls “head and shoulders above almost any writing on women’s issues in mainstream media.” Jessica was the recipient of the 2011 Hillman Journalism Prize and was called one of the Top 100 Inspiring Women in the world by The Guardian.


Latest from the nation