Ellen Carpenter is the quintessential journalist: professional, talented, and hard working. However, with the current title deputy editor of Nylon Magazine and previously an editor for both Rolling Stone Magazine and Spin Magazine, these cookie-cut definitions don’t, well, cut it. Ellen Carpenter is more than a journalist. She’s a mother, a music enthusiast, and “a theater geek”– above all, she is passionate.
Carpenter began her journalistic endeavors when she “was 14 and the editor of Paw Prints, the newspaper at Murray Middle School in Murray, Kentucky.” Several years later, Ellen attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, earning a degree in journalism at Medill. Promptly following her graduation in 1998, Carpenter began freelance work for New York Magazine, trailed by nearly three years as a research editor at Spin Magazine. For the next year, Carpenter worked as a research editor for Blender Magazine, and then as a style editor for Rolling Stone for year before returning back to Spin Magazine as senior editor. A year later, Carpenter began writing for Nylon Magazine and currently holds the position of deputy editor, with two and a half years under her pen. Ellen has interviewed several legendary icons, such as Sofia Coppola and The Artic Monkeys, as well as writing fashion, beauty, and travel stories for both Nylon and Nylon Guys.
The first article of Ellen’s that I read was Spin’s “Why I Can’t Listen to Elliott Smith’s Music,” followed by “Why I Hate Katy Perry.” Ellen proved to be insightful, cheeky, and honest: all the while I’m reading these articles, nodding my head in complete solemnity, going back and forth between smiles and titters to shock and revelation – I’m a big Elliott Smith fan. Nylon Magazine is one of my personal favorites, and reading her interviews on Daniel Radcliffe and Jonah Hill – seemingly intimidating people – that were sarcastic and charming while still being informative… I was impressed and inspired, to say the least. I won’t lie; calling someone whose writing and work I respect was sort of extremely nerve racking. After a few weeks of emailing, Ellen and I had a phone conversation that started with me stammering and ended with some laughs. She’s pretty awesome.
“I was always writing. When I was probably three years old, two years old, I got a typewriter for Christmas, like one of those mini-ones, you know? I used to sit with my mom, and I would tell her stories and she would type them up. I had my own type writer and of course I didn’t know how to type, which was very frustrating as a three year old,” said Ellen in response to how she knew journalism was what she wanted, and wants, to do. Carpenter’s writing and story telling desire began so early; it’s no surprise she was the editor of her own middle school’s paper at the age of fourteen. “My mom was the education director for the school district and was always writing, and so she really encouraged that, and so by the time I was in, gosh, fifth grade I was really into writing and I really wanted a school paper so my mom actually got funding for the school to start a school paper, and it was called the Paw Prints. It was awesome.” It’s also awesome that Carpenter, who realized what she wanted to do with her life at the age of fourteen, is living out her dreams in New York City with her family. “In eighth grade in the school paper – which I was the editor of – I said I wanted to be an editor in New York City… and that’s what I do.”
Let’s be honest, when working as the deputy editor of a renowned magazine such as Nylon, you’re probably going to interview some really famous celebrities. Intimidation seems like a natural predisposition when asking someone personal questions for an interview, let alone if they’re the star of Harry Potter. “Especially people you really like, I mean I feel like at Nylon a lot of the people I interview are younger – I’m not like oh my God I love Rachel Bilson, I’m not like, you know, intimidated by them necessarily. But Sophia Coppola, that was totally intimating. You worry, ‘am I cool enough to interview them or are they gonna think I’m lame?’ those kinda dumb things… that never really goes away,” she laughed.
Having worked for Spin, Nylon, Rolling Stone (just to name a few), Carpenter has clearly jumped around. “I mean in journalism I think people move around a lot, partly because in order to move up in a magazine its easier to move somewhere else, so for me just in order to grow at magazines I had to move, and it’s just fun to get new experiences,” she stated. “The main thing too is every time you move you meet new people and you make new connections and those are just so valuable to get ahead. You need to know a lot of people and network a lot and so the more places you work the bigger your web is, you know? So people will think of you for different opportunities… the more people you know, the better. It’s totally beneficial. I get bored easily, so it’s fun to move around.”
As college students are typically told, journalism is dying, and it’s a waste of time to major in, although Ellen disagrees (yay!) “The most important thing is to be involved in your newspaper, the magazine, online… That’s the best experience ever… Journalism isn’t dying….“Take internships. Internships have infinite amounts of what you can learn, and it’s totally what you make of it.”
Concluding the interview was a lovely parallel to what she does: write about music. “What am I listening to? Oh man, I was so cool a month ago and then I had a baby and now I’m not cool anymore,” Ellen says, as she continues to tell me about “desert-chill” music and a new girl-band from England. Somehow, I still think that Ellen Carpenter is cool.
