Ellen Carpenter is the quintessential journalist: professional, talented, and hard working. However, with the current title deputy editor of\u00a0Nylon Magazine<\/i>\u00a0and previously an editor for both\u00a0Rolling Stone Magazine<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Spin Magazine<\/i>, these cookie-cut definitions don\u2019t, well, cut it. Ellen Carpenter is more than a journalist. She\u2019s a mother, a music enthusiast, and \u201ca theater geek\u201d\u2013 above all, she is passionate.<\/p>\n
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Carpenter began her journalistic endeavors when she \u201cwas 14 and the editor of Paw Prints, the newspaper at Murray Middle School in Murray, Kentucky.\u201d 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\u00a0New York Magazine<\/i>, trailed by nearly three years as a research editor at\u00a0Spin Magazine<\/i>. For the next year, Carpenter worked as a research editor for Blender Magazine, and then as a style editor for\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/i>\u00a0for year before returning back to\u00a0Spin Magazine<\/i>\u00a0as senior editor. A year later, Carpenter began writing for\u00a0Nylon Magazine<\/i>\u00a0and 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\u00a0Nylon<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Nylon Guys<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The first article of Ellen\u2019s that I read was\u00a0Spin<\/i>\u2019s \u201cWhy I Can\u2019t Listen to Elliott Smith\u2019s Music,\u201d followed by \u201cWhy I Hate Katy Perry.\u201d Ellen proved to be insightful, cheeky, and honest: all the while I\u2019m reading these articles, nodding my head in complete solemnity, going back and forth between smiles and titters to shock and revelation \u2013 I\u2019m a big Elliott Smith fan.\u00a0Nylon Magazine<\/i>\u00a0is one of my personal favorites, and reading her interviews on Daniel Radcliffe and Jonah Hill \u2013 seemingly intimidating people \u2013 that were sarcastic and charming while still being informative\u2026 I was impressed and inspired, to say the least. I won\u2019t 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\u2019s pretty awesome.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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\u2019t know how to type, which was very frustrating as a three year old,\u201d said Ellen in response to how she knew journalism was what she wanted, and wants, to do. Carpenter\u2019s writing and story telling desire began so early; it\u2019s no surprise she was the editor of her own middle school\u2019s paper at the age of fourteen. \u201cMy 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.\u201d It\u2019s 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. \u201cIn eighth grade in the school paper \u2013 which I was the editor of \u2013 I said I wanted to be an editor in New York City\u2026 and that\u2019s what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be honest, when working as the deputy editor of a renowned magazine such as\u00a0Nylon<\/i>, you\u2019re 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\u2019re the star of\u00a0Harry Potter<\/i>. \u201cEspecially people you really like, I mean I feel like at\u00a0Nylon<\/i>\u00a0a lot of the people I interview are younger \u2013 I\u2019m not like oh my God I love Rachel Bilson, I\u2019m not like, you know, intimidated by them necessarily. But Sophia Coppola, that was totally intimating. You worry, \u2018am I cool enough to interview them or are they gonna think I\u2019m lame?\u2019 those kinda dumb things… that never really goes away,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n
Having worked for\u00a0Spin, Nylon, Rolling Stone\u00a0<\/i>(just to name a few), Carpenter has clearly jumped around. \u201cI 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\u2019s just fun to get new experiences,\u201d she stated. \u201cThe 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\u2026 the more people you know, the better. It\u2019s totally beneficial. I get bored easily, so it\u2019s fun to move around.\u201d<\/p>\n
As college students are typically told, journalism is dying, and it\u2019s a waste of time to major in, although Ellen disagrees (yay!) \u201cThe most important thing is to be involved in your newspaper, the magazine, online\u2026 That\u2019s the best experience ever\u2026 Journalism isn\u2019t dying\u2026.\u201cTake internships. Internships have infinite amounts of what you can learn, and it\u2019s totally what you make of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concluding the interview was a lovely parallel to what she does: write about music. \u201cWhat am I listening to? Oh man, I was so cool a month ago and then I had a baby and now I\u2019m not cool anymore,\u201d Ellen says, as she continues to tell me about \u201cdesert-chill\u201d music and a new girl-band from England. Somehow, I still think that Ellen Carpenter is cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ellen Carpenter is the quintessential journalist: professional, talented, and hard working. However, with the current title deputy editor of\u00a0Nylon Magazine\u00a0and previously an editor for both\u00a0Rolling Stone Magazine\u00a0and\u00a0Spin Magazine, these cookie-cut definitions don\u2019t, well, cut it. Ellen Carpenter is more than a journalist. She\u2019s a mother, a music enthusiast, and \u201ca theater geek\u201d\u2013 above all, she … Continue reading ellen carpenter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[21,22,19,20],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-journalist","tag-21","tag-interview","tag-journalist","tag-student"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5HHH1-nylon","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.axharrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}