“This is what I have to say”
  September 24, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, The Fat Bear Week bracket is out, and my money is riding on Bear 910, the daughter of former champion Beadnose. 910 is in a round-two head-to-head against her sister, 909, which probably makes things really awkward in the den.  I LOVE HER. (PHOTO COURTESY OF C. LOBURG) In today’s newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz has three questions for Jamia Wilson, the editor of Gloria Steinem’s posthumous memoir. Plus, a sneak peek at tomorrow’s season finale of UNDISTRACTED. But first, a little bit of news. 🐻, Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ON
 Three Questions About….Editing Gloria SteinemEditor Jamia Wilson explains what it was like to shepherd the feminist icon’s final book. BY NONA WILLIS ARONOWITZ  IMAGES COURTESY OF JAMIA WILSON AND RANDOM HOUSE When Gloria Steinem’s longtime editor, Kate Medina, retired last year, she passed on her memoir project to Jamia Wilson, a VP and executive editor at Random House. Wilson was a close friend and collaborator of Steinem’s who was nearly 50 years her junior. The resulting memoir, An Unexpected Life, turned out to be the final piece of writing Steinem shared with the world, and it hits bookshelves this week. The Meteor talked to Wilson—one of our founding members—about what it was like to edit her mentor (though “Gloria always hated it when I called her that”) and her favorite passages of the book. When was the last time you met with Gloria, and do you think that she had a sense that this book was her last word? It was at a talking circle in July at her home. I’d been to many of her talking circles, and this one was with librarians and people who were invested in conversations about books and freedom of expression. And with Gloria being such a passionate writer and reader, it really was a profound experience for me to witness her in conversation with people who are the connectors of books and their readers. I left that talking circle with a deep awe of how she still had that ability to make every single person feel seen and loved and supported. She was still embodying the French idea of “refaire le monde,” like: “Let’s remake the world with a dinner party.” [But I didn’t get a sense that we were in her final days.] I got there a little early like I always tried to do, and we talked about how I was going to the beach later that summer. She said, “Oh, tell me about it when you get back, but you should also put Positano on your list—it’s the most beautiful.” So I felt the conversation had ellipses on it at the end.  STEINEM AND WILSON AT A 2015 DISCUSSION FOR STEINEM’S FIRST MEMOIR, “MY LIFE ON THE ROAD” (VIA GETTY IMAGES) You’d known Gloria for more than 20 years, starting when you were a youth organizer for the March for Women’s Lives in 2004—but this was your first time having an editor-writer relationship with her. What was that like, and what was her process like as a writer? Working on the project became an intergenerational conversation with us and her whole team; in true Gloria fashion, the process was a circle. She also told me, “Jamia, everyone needs to be edited, so I need you to really make sure you tell me every critique that comes to mind.” She was so exacting and diligent in that way. Gloria identified as a writer, and the only thing that she said she regretted in this life was not writing more. She was very analog about it: She wrote on yellow legal pads and these iconic little notebooks that she always would write her ideas on. And sometimes she would send pictures of those pages—or sometimes I would even ask for them, because I wanted to get a sense of, Oh, what did you cross out? I received the manuscript right on time and at about 80,000 words [which is not very long]. I was like, “Hey, you’ve had a really long life. If you really wanted to go off and say more, you could.” And she said, “No, this is what I have to say.” It was always one of her feminist superpowers to be clear, concise, compelling. What were your favorite parts of the book to work on? The first section of the book is called “Bad Things I’m Glad Happened to Me,” which was a core part of her thesis—in particular, two portions of that chapter called “We learn from difference, not sameness,” and “If it’s all white, it isn’t feminism.” There’s a passage in that section that reads: “Black women have been seen as leading one another, but rarely as the leaders of white women and least of all as the leaders of white men. The truth is that they have been universal leaders of us all.” I was very moved to see her modeling that kind of evolution. That section was very important to me not only as an editor, but also as a Black feminist raised by a Black feminist scholar mom.  ONE MORE THING…Tomorrow’s season finale of UNDISTRACTED will feature an encouraging conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris and Brittany Packnett Cunningham. They touch on our political future, a persuasive theory about the current backlash against Black cultural institutions, and what 2028 may hold—and they settle the debate on which HU is the HU (iykyk). You can enjoy the full episode as soon as it drops on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.  FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
