As you may know I am proud to say I'm a contributor to the Book of Jezebel, which has been getting some great reviews (as well as some ...interesting ones.) Tonight I will be reading from the book alongside some of its other editors and contributors like Kate Harding, Jessica Coen and Jenna Sauers at the Book Cellar (please come!). The book probably wouldn't exist, though (and neither would the site), without today's interviewee, the founding editor of the blog. She has written and edited for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, InStyle and The New Yorker online.  In 2013 her Twitter account was named one of the top 140 Twitter feeds by Time Magazine and she was recently named a columnist for the New York Times Book Review. You can learn a lot more about her here.

The way you brainstormed and executed the book seemed like an organizational nightmare. Logistically, if you had the chance to do the book all over again, would you do anything differently?
Yes. I would have used book writing/editing software and/or kept an Excel spreadsheet detailing the status of every entry and associated writer. The problem is, I suck at Excel! I also have a tendency to make things difficult for myself; this was no exception.

Perhaps this ties into #1 but what was the hardest part about securing all the photos and illustrations for the book? It's really beautiful, visually.
I think the hardest part was making sure we had high res files for all the images, creating the Art Log that tracked and detailed every image - that was an Excel file that ran over 300 pages - and then doing the image credits in the back of the book. It's only 3 pages long but it took me about 3 weeks to put together because all the language had to be precise and the image credits put in order in which they appear. I loved choosing the photos and commissioning the illustrations, though!

I'm sure you've had many other visions over the years what a "Book of Jezebel" would look like. What were some other incarnations you had considered and passed over?
I'm not sure that I had a vision of a different "Book of Jezebel" but we definitely had a Jezebel-branded book idea in the beginning I called "The Sarah Palin Yearbook". The idea is that it would be a book that looked like a High School Yearbook, except that DC culture/politics was the "high school" and Palin was a junior who was scribbling nasty dumb nonsense next to the pictures of her peers (other politicians and public figures). She, of course, had plenty of mean things to say about the school principal, Barack Obama.

Who is the woman in the Jezebel logo? What is her creation story?
I have no idea. She is a model from a stock photo that our awesome Chicago-based designer, Patrick King of House of Pretty, found and modified a bit for the logo/avatar. I'd love to find the model who posed for the image and ask if she has ever recognized herself.

What are some of the biggest ways Jezebel has changed or evolved since it first started?
Well, it's grown in traffic quite a bit, especially since Jessica Coen took the reins in mid-2010. I think it has a broader appeal and is not as insidery as it was when I was running it. Jessica is more talented at covering topics that I didn't know how to cover or do in a smart way. It's much more of a national name than it was in, say, 2008-2009. And I get the sense that more men read it than ever!

I've read interviews with you where you talk about your issues with blogging burnout and this is something I often consider as I get older. What has seemed to work for you when it comes to striving for a balance between a career that behooves you to spend time online as well as getting offline to brainstorm, collaborate, socialize and recharge? (Or to boil it down, how do you mature and not fall victim to Fear of Missing Out?)
I have no idea how to answer this question because I have yet to have another fulltime job online where I can actually put my efforts not to work 18 hours a day into actual practice. I don't have a fear of missing out as much as I used to but that's because it finally occurred to me that if a story breaks or a conversation begins that is really that important, I will be made aware of it hours or days later because other people will still be talking about it. Maybe I won't witness the explosion of conversation at the beginning, but I can always backtrack. That said, I am never totally, fully offline unless I am somewhere with no cell service. Or asleep.

What advice would you give to a woman in her 20's who told you that she was planning on entering the full-time blogging world?
Believe in your voice, your point of view, and do not try to imitate anyone - or anything - else. Translate your curiosities, passions and interests in the world into your writing. If you don't have many curiosities, passions or interests in the world, you probably shouldn't be writing.

Now that the book is out in the world, do you have anything planned, work or personal-wise,  to avoid post-publication letdown or as a palate-cleanser?
No, but I'm working on that. I think the short answer is: The holidays!

Aside from Jezebel-related projects, can you tell me three pieces of writing you've published in the last couple of years that you're proudest of?
An op-ed for the New York Times on Charlie Sheen and how Hollywood and the media have ignored/glossed over his history of violence against women. A piece on the racially charged reactions to one of the actresses in the film version of The Hunger Games. I also loved a column I did for the Washington Post on women in the civil rights movement, specifically female Freedom Riders.

How does it feel to be the 366th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Like the first day of a brand new year.