Virginia Sole-Smith

Virginia Sole-Smith writes about the worlds of women. Much like the women’s magazines in which she's predominantly published, sometimes these are overtly feminine places: Discount nail salons, Mary Kay parties, and beauty school. They may also be male-dominated spaces, even places where women are essentially imprisoned, like a Mexican sweatshop or college campuses with a problematic history of ignoring rape. And some, like a mermaid grotto, exist mostly in our imagination. She's interested in how these worlds shape women, in how we can find moments of power underneath frameworks intended to disempower us, and in what we can do to make these spaces better coexist with the world around us. Sole-Smith's work has appeared in more than 50 national magazines, websites, and newspapers including Elle, Slate, Harper’s and The New York Times Magazine. Her first book, an investigation of how we learn to eat, will be published by Henry Holt in 2018. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family and three cats. Last updated July 2017