Baby, Unplugged with Sophie Brickman

Sophie Brickman focuses on the intersection of parenting and technology in her book Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age (HarperOne, 2021), which we’ll be discussing on this episode. Brickman is a writer, reporter and editor based in New York City. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Saveur, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the anthologies Best Food Writing and Best American Science Writing, among other places. 

Currently a columnist at The Guardian, Sophie wrote a monthly column for Elle interviewing influential women such as Nancy Pelosi and Joyce Carol Oates about their paths to success, served as Executive Editor of a travel publication launched jointly between Hearst and Airbnb, and was the Features Editor at Saveur. As a staff reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle, Sophie won first place in the 2011 Association of Food Journalists’ feature writing category for a piece about Napa’s French Laundry restaurant. Once upon a time, after attending the French Culinary Institute, she worked the line at Gramercy Tavern, making risotto and lamb ragù for the lunch crowd. Before that, she graduated with honors from Harvard, where she studied social theory and philosophy. (Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.)

NOTES

You can learn more about Sophie Brickman, read some of her articles, and order her fabulous book on her website. One of my favorite feature articles, which I refer to in our conversation, is her award-winning piece on the world-famous California restaurant The French Laundry. Read it here.

Featured in the soundscape of this episode is an instrumental version of “Crack a Bottle, Run a Bath” by Shayfer James. Recorded for the 2019 collection Hope and a Hand Grenade, the track features Jeremy Gillespie on guitar, Caitlin Grey on bass, Corby Hewson on drums, Peter Horn on fiddle, and Ian Scratch on percussion. Listen to Shayfer and find out how to catch him on tour on his website.

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