For me, this was a process of learning that every single person has a bad day and a messy desk. I’ll think ‘Oh, Nikki Giovanni’s never had a bad day in her life,’ which is so ridiculous and untrue. And they were like, ‘I would apologize, but I’m not going to, because this is what it’s really like.’ And I was like, ‘Yes! Thank you! I’m so glad to know that you also have like eight coffee mugs that you haven’t washed yet, and that’s totally ok.’ I think that humanizing process was really important because I naturally tend to put people on pedestals. “I so enjoyed the moments when we went into somebody’s studio and it was just a hot mess. More businesses are launched when you realize that everyone’s path is bumpy than if you feel like there’s one way to do that, and it all was seamless.” I would much rather hear all the things that didn’t go well, and how you picked yourself back up. Social media - and even business books, in general - tend to be this highlights reel, and I don’t learn anything from that. This book was very much about how we have to embrace both sides of the pendulum. “I think we all have responded to Instagram perfection in a way that’s really unhealthy. We hear about what it was like to sit down for a lengthy conversation with Oprah Winfrey. Plus, a conversation with Jenn White, host of WBEZ’s new documentary podcast series, Making Oprah.
The Nerdette hosts talk to Bonney about the beauty of creative messes, what we’d do if we magically had an extra hour in the day, and the ever-elusive notion of work-life balance. The book features short Q&A’s and portraits of people like Issa Rae, Roxane Gay, Tavi Gevinson, Nikki Giovanni, and Neko Case. The women Bonney profiles are television showrunners, designers, museum directors, potters, poets, chefs, musicians and more. She talked to 100 women doing creative work and tells us what she learned by turning those conversations into the new book In The Company Of Women. Grace Bonney is the brilliant creator behind the website Design*Sponge.