Chatting About A New Era

Mike: Meaghan, you have some news, yes?

Meaghan: Omg you’re going to make me say it. Yes, as of next week, I am going back to being a commenter.

Mike: Hah, yes, you’re moving to Portland and taking on a fancy new gig. But before you make everyone scream, you’ll still be writing for us on an occasional basis, right? We’ll need to hear about your new landlord.

Meaghan: Ha! Yes a lot of change is afoot but I will need to livejournal about most of it, I imagine. We are moving to a new city in a month and I am going to be writing a weekly column for The Cut about motherhood, which I am excited about (and hope everyone reads and shares wildly on social media so that I can earn my keep — hah?)!

Mike: Yeah! And we’ll link to this column sometimes because we love you. Also, I’m glad we had you every day for a year. I feel as if we were very lucky. You’re so funny and talented and I thought you would have been stolen so much sooner.

Meaghan: Mike STOP. I will cry. It has been so nice hanging out with The Billfold every day, and with you and Ester. I feel like you have been responsible for a lot of good things in my life! And you have taken a risk on me more than once. Remember when I started and you kind of assumed I knew how to blog and you had to explain HTML and like, the fact that you couldn’t just put any image in a blog post?

Mike: Lol, well I kind of thought you just knew since you worked for a giant blog company, but it was easy! You caught on. I also think that’s part of what we do not just on this website, but on our network: We work with writers and then they get really good and get read by a bunch of other editors and then move on to bigger things. Like Jia used to write for us every week, and then she went to the Hairpin and then to Jezebel. But, I’m happy and proud every time something like this happens. This is what is supposed to happen.

Meaghan: I love that we get to take risks on new writers — I have cried more than once editing a piece and seeing someone tweet about it being the first thing they’ve published. Because my rental history was one of the first things I ever actually finished and submitted! I think The Billfold is such a welcoming, accessible place that places importance on individual stories. I mean where else do you actually WANT to read the comments (most of the time)?

Mike: Yeah, the readers here are so great and I know they say such nice things about us. I’ll look at comments on things I write and will get bright red, so I can’t do it too often 😉

Meaghan: I want to mention the tumblr but I won’t. I WON’T. Ha.

Mike: Omg.

Meaghan: Hahaha. No but really. Honestly I won’t miss writing x things about money every day — SORRY! — but I will miss editing and interacting with our little community. I will still be around, though. Also I do want to say thank you to YOU and everyone for being patient with me as I went through all matter of insane life things this year and faded in and out and would email you and be like, Can I just write two posts? Okay just one post? Okay just edit one post? Et cetera. I don’t know where else I would be able to do that, and where I knew I could just be straight with you about what I could handle and you were compassionate about it. SO thank you.

Mike: Of course! We’ve always been good about Real Talk around here. Okay, so people will probably wonder if you are going to be replaced, and no you could never be replaced. Our goal will be to publish more features on a daily basis (which means if you have been thinking about writing for us feel free to email me or Ester or Nicole!). Also, I had like, 50 people email about wanting to do “Doing Money” interviews, so expect a bunch of those. And of course, you are welcome to write whenever you feel like it. I am letting you keep your login, lol.

Meaghan: Ha, omg, ok good, I will pop in and out on occasion. But just enough so that people will miss me almost as much as they miss Logan. JK JK. But that sounds smart! I am excited to read, as always.

Mike: ME TOO. Okay, everyone please tell Meaghan how much you love here in the comments. She’ll be reading them and responding, obviously!

Meaghan: LOL OBVIOUSLY.

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