Virginia Heffernan
Best known to readers as Slate's prolific TV critic, she has worked as a fact-checker for The New Yorker, a writer at VH1, and an editor at Harper's, Talk, and Slate. She also holds a doctorate in English literature from Harvard, wrote the Emmy-nominated Matthew's Murder for MTV, and has been anthologized (with co-writer and former roommate Mike Albo) in the comedic-monologue collection Extreme Exposure.
Heffernan is part of that elite crew of writers other writers like to rave about (in public, at least).
So how was working at The New Yorker?
I just loved office life—little things like the guard saying, "Good morning, Virginia," or the receptionist having a "While You Were Out" slip for you. They didn't have room for me, so they put me in Janet Malcolm's office, which was incredible, sitting surrounded by her books. We just played pranks on each other all the time. Once, I was fact-checking a piece about an autistic cockney child who was an idiot-savant, and the number of other fact-checkers who left messages trying to simulate his voice numbered 10 or 11, for sure.
But you didn't stay.
I had this completely wrong idea that I could finish the teaching component of my program, come back to New York, do some get-rich-quick scheme, and finish my dissertation. But after I finished, I was just living in Brooklyn and trying to get things together. The last of the weird projects I took was this book by Michael Eisner called Work in Progress. It was just bizarre: I'd be in my apartment, where things were looking pretty shabby, talking to guys in St. Barts or at the Oscars. Then I saw the front-page announcement in the Times that Tina Brown was starting a new venture with Miramax. I wrote directly to Tina and said, I used to work under you as a fact-checker at The New Yorker and maybe you'd think about hiring me as a researcher or something.
SNIP
And this led to your work for Slate?
Jacob Weisberg wanted someone who had written for television and would know something about how it was made. I wrote one column on Rosie O'Donnell and one on dating shows, and all the posters in The Fray called for my immediate resignation. I thought, "Okay, that's over." Meanwhile, Jake was like, "Bring it on!" Maddeningly, around this time, Harper's called and asked if I would apply for a job there. They couldn't have been more different from Slate and from VH1. It was a little bit chastening, because I had been in this very commercial world.
Mike Albo
As a monologuist and performer, Albo has completed three critically acclaimed, sold-out solo shows: Mike Albo, Spray, and Please Everything Burst - co-written with his longtime friend, Dr. Virginia Heffernan, as well as many solo performances and tours across the United States and Europe. Fast-paced, hilarious, highly emotional and punctuated with dance, his performances have been praised in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paper, Time Out, The Independent in London, The Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh Tribune, and recently in an article in an LA Times about writers who perform.
http://www.mikealbo.com/