c/o Gabrielle Bruney
Writer and editor Gabrielle Bruney ’14 visited campus for the Ask Me Anything writer’s series on Tuesday, Feb. 20. The series is co-hosted by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism and the Gordon Career Center, focusing on alumni and their careers as writers, editors, and creators. Bruney has written about television, film, music, and politics for publications such as Jezebel, Esquire, and Vice, with appearances on news program Democracy Now! and on MSNBC.
The event took place at the Shapiro Center, where students and faculty across various departments gathered in discussion. The audience included two former teachers of Bruney: Professors of Music Jane Alden and Eric Charry, the latter of whom was her thesis advisor. She graduated from Wesleyan as a music major with a writing certificate, and was a staff writer on The Argus for the Arts & Culture section.
Continuing her previous experiences writing for publications at her high school and incorporating her interests in music, Bruney primarily concentrated on writing music reviews and covering concerts during her time on campus.
“Of course, my writing classes were amazing—[former Professor of English] Clifford Chase, who was here at the time, was a professor who had a huge impact on me,” Bruney said. “But I feel like the music department really strengthened me as a writer, because I felt like I was just engaging so closely with a text, maybe not a literary text, but writing papers about it and considering it. And so that kind of felt like my whole life at Wesleyan.”
Once she left Wesleyan, Bruney transitioned from writing music reviews to writing profiles, especially after the pandemic started.
“When video calls became the standard, all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Oh, I can spend two hours Zooming with someone who I definitely wouldn’t have had access to at other points,’” Bruney said. “So that I think was a big, just practical part of it. And I like profiles, because it felt like a way for me to get a little bit of criticism in there as well, because it was generally pegged to something you’re promoting, right? So they have a TV show, they have an exhibit, and it felt nice to be able to try and write about this person and their work at the same time.”
After graduating from Wesleyan, Bruney received a Master of Arts from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which she credits with helping her develop her interviewing and communication skills. However, she doesn’t believe that journalism school is necessary for everyone, particularly not for those already comfortable with the attention that comes with interviewing. This sentiment rings even more true in the context of the current job market.
“When I graduated into digital media, I felt like I was arriving at a party with the lights [having] been turned off, but like they hadn’t sent everyone home yet,” Bruney said. “I feel like there’s never been any time where I was like, ‘Oh, there will be a solid career path here.’ And job security—that’s never happened, so it’s always something on my mind.”
Reflecting on Bruney’s experiences with the job market, Director of the Shapiro Center Merve Emre reiterated the importance of flexibility and alternative career options for writers and creatives.
“I think the truth is most of us cobbled together a couple of things,” Emre said. “For a lot of writers, it’s academia…but the truth is, many people really are just hustling. You’re working three or four different jobs at a time, you’re doing copy editing, you’re…tutoring, you’re writing a book at the same time that you’re writing a magazine article, and there’s stress there and there’s precarity there. And on the flip side of it is there’s also a particular kind of freedom there, which is if you don’t want to write like the bullshit pieces that you’re being asked to write, you don’t have to do that.”
For those interested in other events bringing writers and critics to Wesleyan, the Shapiro Center is hosting Lauren Michele Jackson, an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and a contributing writer for The New Yorker, in their next installment of the Critics and Her Publics series.
Rose Chen can be reached at rchen@wesleyan.edu.