How Author Morgan Jerkins Gets it All Done (While Having a Day Job)
Forge talks to our Medium colleague and the bestselling author of ‘Wandering in Strange Lands’ about productivity and focus. And sleep.
Before the pandemic relegated Medium staffers to working from home, ZORA senior editor Morgan Jerkins sat feet away from Team Forge in Medium’s Manhattan office. Every so often, she’d break the focused silence of our editorial wing with an out-loud story discussion or a throaty, infectious laugh — casual gestures of camaraderie that belie Jerkins’ parallel identity as a rising star of the 21st-century cultural canon. Her 2018 debut essay collection, This Will Be My Undoing, was a critical triumph, cementing Jerkins as a key voice in an emerging generation of critics that probe the intersections of Black American experience.
The now 28-year-old author has just released her second book, Wandering in Strange Lands — a roving, investigative journey that retraces her family’s route through the Great Migration — and is working on a debut novel. In the meantime, she juggles speaking engagements and the occasional teaching job, book promotion and, yes, self-care — all while chasing the day-to-day deadlines and creative brainstorms of a full-time job at Medium’s publication for women of…
