Author, SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS (2022) & TOUGH LOVE (2026) | Interim EIC
@Orion_Magazine
| Contributing writer
@thewalrus
| tajjadee
@gmail
.com | She/her
Some news: I’m writing another book—a memoir. TOUGH LOVE is about mentorship and ambition, but also desire and discipline, submission and kink, power and control. It is the best, most personal thing I’ve ever written and I can’t wait to work on it in Vegas this spring.
@theferocity
Mal has been giving her that same limp handhold for how many years with no heat ... hot mysterious general touches her wrist for two seconds and the goddamn sun explodes
As a huge fan of all things
@CatapultStory
, I am thrilled to announce that I’m joining Catapult Magazine as an editor! I've loved being a contributing editor for this team and I’m so excited to work with them full-time. Stay tuned for a pitch call next week!
As promised, I am now taking pitches/submissions for
@CatapultStory
! This thread gives a sense of what I'm looking for and examples of pieces I’ve edited for the magazine. It's lengthy, but hopefully it contains all the info you'll need.
I'm looking to commission some new essays for
@CatapultStory
for Dec/Jan! Here's a guide that includes what I'm looking for, how to pitch, examples, and rate info. I'm reading on a rolling basis for now but will update the doc if that changes.
Looking to commission some new essays for
@CatapultStory
for Feb/March! I'm looking for first-person essays that use the personal as a portal to broader questions & conversations. Here's my pitch guide, which has everything you need to know:
Stewardship of this vital literary space has been the greatest honor of my career. I'm deeply grateful for the trust of my mentors, my team, and the community, and I'll forever be proud of the work we did.
Home ownership for many millennials will never be a reality. Even if you’re lucky enough to get help from your parents, so many in this generation have had to work harder, earn less, and have their adulthood shaped by precarity, writes
@kelkord
. 1/6
This is gutting. I have so much respect for Andrea for writing this, especially amidst a flood of pieces—including mine, just last week—that missed this part of her mother's legacy:
Hey
@WritersofColor
! I'm a contributing editor at
@CatapultStory
and would love to see your pitches (or drafts, if it's your first publication) for narrative nonfiction/personal essays. Send pitches and clips to tajjadee
@gmail
.com.
For
@vulture
, I wrote about one of the most vexing expectations in the publishing process: that writers become mouthpieces for the issues in their books, and how that takes form in the promotional essay. Then I convinced them to run it on my pub day 😈:
A lil job news: I'll be stepping in as interim EIC of
@Orion_Magazine
for the rest of this year! I didn't think I'd get this kind of opportunity again and I'm really grateful.
I'd love to get more pitches for
@CatapultStory
––seeking smart, scene-driven narrative nonfiction (personal or not!) that intersects with culture and politics. Full drafts preferred, word limit approx. 2500, and we pay! Send to tajjadee
@gmail
.com. cc:
@WritersofColor
Today, an excerpt from my book appears in
@TIME
(!). It’s about the poses and artifices of literary whiteness, my attempts to mimic them as a teenager, and the privilege of being read generously:
For
@TheAtlantic
, I wrote about reassessing my relationship to work, want, and where those things intersect—all through the books that have guided my thinking:
Some professional news! Delighted to be returning part-time to
@thewalrus
as a contributing writer, where I look forward to having them change all my Americanized spelling. And alongside the amazing
@michellecyca
!
We are thrilled to announce that
@michellecyca
and
@tajjaisen
are joining The Walrus as contributing writers. Read the first of their pieces on starting next week.
My book, SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: ESSAYS ON LIP SERVICE, is available for preorder! It’s about how we live, and what we demand, amid token apologies for structural racism; out 4/19/22 from
@OneSignalPub
&
@DoubledayCA
.
US:
Canada:
Wrote the first draft of this proposal almost a year ago, in the cafés of lower Manhattan. Rewrote it during lockdown in Toronto, from the depths of lip service–induced despair. Then I spent an hour writing this tweet.
My first book comes out in exactly three months! Early reviews and blurbs have affirmed the things about it that I'm proudest of—humor, pleasure, sharpness. For debuts especially, every preorder helps!
US:
Canada:
I'm seeking pitches for The Walrus about home and housing! What (or where) is home to you, especially now? How have your ties to it changed? What the hell is this rental market? Send pitches (essays, culture, short features) to tajja
@thewalrus
.ca by June 1st.
“Doesn’t it scan as odd that the collective book industry reply to “your working conditions are so racist they’re a form of psychological horror” was an ecstatic ‘yes, drag me’?” An excerpt of my book is out today in
@lithub
:
When editors are like "Why can't I find any new writers? Why are we publishing the same five people? Why are all of them white? Where are my 'diverse' writers?" Shit like this is why!!!
This idea's been burning a hole in my brain for about a year. Grateful to the writers and designers who spoke to me for my favorite publishing essay yet:
This is kind of niche, but I'd love a writer to pitch me a piece on recording their own audiobook and what that confrontation with their work was like.
I have an irritatingly on-the-nose craving to read books that are set mostly, if not entirely, in a single house. Ideally a sprawling one, haunting optional. Recommendations?
I've recently started editing for The Walrus, and I'm currently seeking web pitches! Here's a short thread of the sort of thing I'd love to assign (and that we're looking to do more of, in general):
Some personal news! I adore the work Black Mountain Institute does and the community they’ve built. I can’t wait to work on book two in the Vegas desert:
Good morning, writers! I’m currently seeking personal essay and narrative nonfiction submissions for
@CatapultStory
. 800-2,000 words, full drafts preferred. Please send pieces to tajjadee
@gmail
.com.
Home ownership is increasingly out of reach for the majority of millennials. But that hasn’t stopped a generation from trying to participate in the property ladder as voyeurs, writes
@amil
. Read about the baffling popularity of real estate TV:
1/6
#housing
Thrilled and stunned that my work at
@thewalrus
is a finalist for Best Column at the National Magazine Awards—it means a lot to have arts & culture crit get this kind of recognition
@WritersofColor
Always seeking narrative-driven personal essays and nonfiction for
@CatapultStory
! I love a strong sense of voice. 2,000 words max; full drafts preferred; we pay! Inbox open at tajjadee
@gmail
.com.
Catapult was my second-ever byline. I'm still stunned
@nicolesjchung
took a chance on me and offered me a contributing editor position. Taking over as EIC was only possible because of the stellar team she already had in place:
@ortile
,
@ssrosecw
,
@Allisen_
,
@elizaeharris
. Stars.
A part of publishing I think we ought to discuss more is the way "things you mention in your book" shades into "things you're expected to be an expert on" pre- and post-pub—on social, in branding, in "op-eds"
Really grateful, in this blighted landscape, to have a writing gig where I can just be like "hey can I write about this thing on my mind" and the answer is usually "hell yeah"
“The company’s chief people officer Daisy Augur-Dominguez received a $99,000 bonus, while admonishing staff trying to get their expenses back for not being polite. Augur-Dominguez was paid $749,000 in annual compensation” .
Some housekeeping: the mag will remain archived online, so you can access your prior work. We will be publishing for the rest of this week. If you've contracted a piece with us for beyond Friday, we will be in touch to make sure you get paid.
In ideas-driven memoir, you can totally tell when the writer hasn’t read around a little in the subject area and acts like they’re the first one ever to have these thoughts
Over at
@walrusmagazine
, we've launched a new digital series on all things outer space. We'll be publishing new stories every day this week, on subjects from Indigenous star stories to the dangers of space junk. I'm so proud of what we've created:
"In the nine essays in this stellar debut collection, the author probes the gap between expectation and reality." Thank you to
@KirkusReviews
for this ⭐️starred⭐️ review of SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS:
Submissions are preferred but pitches work, provided they’re detailed and give a strong sense of the arc. Finished pieces run to ~2000 words and all contributors are paid. Please send submissions to tajja.isen
@catapult
.co **please note that's .co, NOT .com**
One of my favorite things about editing essays is asking writers "Do you think there might be a book here?" and seeing the lightbulb go off. It can be a hard thing to see for oneself—it was for me—and I love extending that little gift of possibility.
Can also share the anxiety of receiving multiple emails from my agent and editor with the subject line “TOUGH LOVE” before remembering it’s what I named the thing
Some news: I’m writing another book—a memoir. TOUGH LOVE is about mentorship and ambition, but also desire and discipline, submission and kink, power and control. It is the best, most personal thing I’ve ever written and I can’t wait to work on it in Vegas this spring.
Broadly speaking, I’m excited to commission essays that balance personal narrative with sharp cultural analysis. I love to see a writer attending carefully to sources, texts, and contexts to clarify—or complicate—the story of themselves.
I'm incredibly excited to introduce I GIVE UP, a new series from
@CatapultStory
magazine. Each day, we'll be publishing two new pieces in which writers reflect on something they've renounced—today is
@j_zimms
on pants:
The news is out! I'll be the visiting deputy editor at
@ElectricLit
in August, pinch-hitting for my fave editor
@j_zimms
. Send your essay pitches to tajja
@electricliterature
.com! Will shortly put out a thread for the sorts of stuff I'm keen to assign.
Dream assignment to be asked to write about books that make me cry, to which my answer was basically “most of them, for different reasons; how much space do I have?”:
I'm so thrilled to announce HOUSE ON FIRE, a forthcoming essay anthology about climate change––with a truly stellar slate of writers––co-edited by me and the genius
@ingredient_x
. Our subject is the planet but our contributors are OUTTA THIS WORLD:
Catapult mag ends on a strong note with this banger by
@tnwhiskeywoman
, on writing a romance novel after being an avid reader of the genre for years. Edited by
@ortile
as part of Romance Week (led by
@ssrosecw
) with art direction by
@elizaeharris
:
Writers: what goes through your mind when you put a section break in an essay? (For me: "key change," "mic drop," "I sleepy.") I am curious about why and how you make the choice!
For the evening crowd: I wrote about the way the book-cover design process often fails racialized authors. I'm really proud of this piece and it'd mean a lot if you read it.
"These closures represent a tremendous loss not only of talent but also of critical onramps into the industry: places that aren’t cordoned off by house voices and legacy branding ... Where being subversive or pioneering or niche is the point."