I’m Michelle Weber:

Professional editor and writer, late-blooming artist, full-time strident feminist harpy.

Once I was a senior editor at Longreads. Then I was editor-in-chief of Pipe Wrench. I’ve been writing about shit on the internet for 18+ years. These days, I freelance for people and places I care about and I make things with my hands.

I have degrees (BA, MTS, JD) from prestigious institutions (Northwestern, Harvard, NYU), that I don’t use but that make you look smart for working with me.

Someone once described me as “demure as a brick to the head.” I took this as a compliment of the highest order and married the person who said it.

I edit…

…longform nonfiction like

Breai Mason-Campbell’s Seeing in the Dark

number-one editors’ pick, The Sunday Long Read
number-one editors’ pick, Longreads

Shanna B. Tiayon’s If We Can Soar: What Birmingham Roller Pigeons Offer the Men of South Central

National Magazine Award finalist, Profile Writing
editors’ pick, Longreads and The Sunday Long Read
recommendation, Anne Friedman and Solutions Journalism

Alizeh Kohari’s The Guru Who Said No

a Lapham’s Quarterly recommended read
staff recommendation, Fortune magazine

Tom Finger’s Ghost Acres: Tulare Lake & the Past Future of Food

selection, Best American Food Writing 2022

Marquisele Mercedes’ No Health, No Care: The Big Fat Loophole in the Hippocratic Oath

staff recommendation, Pocket
editors’ pick, Longreads

Tim Requarth’s The Final Five Percent

selection, Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017
winner, “Longform Narrative,” National Association of Science Writers

Joe Fassler’s The Man Who’ll Save Your Neighborhood Grocer

selection, Best American Food Writing 2017

…columns and series like

Laurie Penny’s Feminism, Consent, and Democracy

National Magazine Award finalist, Commentary and Criticism
now a book from Bloomsbury

Katy Kelleher’s The Ugly History of Beautiful Things

now a book from Simon & Schuster

…books like

…for companies and orgs like

Automattic (tech)
Okta (tech)
Esalen Institute (wellness)
USAFacts (data)
Lox Populi (tech)
The Pewter Thimble (retail)
Sibling Revelry (hospitality)
Internazionale (media)

Sometimes I write…

…personal essays

…blogs

King of States

Thursday Night Smackdown

Bloggies finalist, “Best Kept Secret”
Saveur magazine, “Sites We Love”

…craft essays

…books

And then there’s the art…

(It only really makes sense if you speak Italian. Specifically, Roman Italian. You can see and learn more at schizzibizzi.com.)

Other true facts…

I live in the center of Rome, yet manage to go days at a time without thinking about the Roman Empire.

If you wrote a book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, I would 100% read that book.

My instrumental doom metal jam band was named “Esquilax,” after a creature with the head of a rabbit and the body of a rabbit.

If you wrote a book about corrupt and/or insane popes of the Middle Ages, I have 100% already read that book.

Any dog is better than all people.