You may have heard or read this already or you may have not, but today marks the last day Zulkey.com will be produced by WBEZ. After almost exactly two years of running my blog, the station is taking a new direction in terms of its online content.
I was thrilled and grateful when this opportunity was first extended to me, and pretty much in disbelief—I was getting hired to do something I used to do for free, and by one of my main and favorite sources of media? So I cannot thank Justin Kaufmann over there enough, for bringing me on as a blogger, for asking me to come and pitch in on-air, for talking me through a couple of uncertain patches and just being an enthusiastic friend to me. He is my homey, if I may be so bold.
Many thanks also to Tim Akimoff, Robin Amer, Tricia Bobeda and Elliott Ramos for guiding me through my time at BEZ. I like Andrew Gill a lot too. And even though she hasn’t been with BEZ for at least two jobs now, I had a criminal amount of fun working with Kate Dries, who is now kicking butt over at Jezebel.
Thanks to BEZ for letting me write about stupid things like an Anthropologie sweater sale gone awry—I never would have thought that something like that would have gotten the traction it did. Thank you for letting me write about my baby, from his inception to his birth to all the ups and downs that followed (and actually I’d like to say on the record that the ups have significantly outnumbered the downs, but who wants to read a blog about how cute some lady’s new baby is? Not me, or at least, I don’t want to write one.) Thanks for letting me give props to my sister-writers here in the city. We are a rowdy, supportive bunch. Thanks for running my interviews with people like Mo Rocca, Cheryl Strayed, Gillian Flynn, Keegan-Michael Key, Tavi Gevinson and White Sox/Blackhawks announcer Gene Honda.
Thanks for letting me come on the radio and meet people whom I had only known as voices on-air: Tony Sarabia, Rick Kogan, Louisa Chu, Lee Bey, Susie An, Niala Boodhoo, Becky Vevea, Natalie Moore and especially Cheryl Raye-Stout.
I will miss saying that I blog for the station but I hope to still work with them in different ways in the future, and I will always, of course, listen. In the meantime I am taking a tiny break next week but starting July 8 you can find me back at my home, Zulkey.com.
