Culture and gender writer. Previously at Vox, other bylines at The Toast and the A.V. Club. Not the Ugly Betty character. ConstanceCGrady @ gmail
Joined June 2010
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Today I'm starting The Trick, a newsletter going through every single Agatha Christie novel to analyze how she did it. Volume 1: Death on the Nile
Christie's such a technical writer that close reading her is sort of like looking at all the gears of a watch ticking away. It's such a fun time! constancegrady.substack.com/…
I'm starting a newsletter! Included in the first issue: how graffiti in DC is different from graffiti in NYC
I would love it if you subscribed! Figuring out how to do sustainable cultural criticism in this ecosystem is a real project substack.com/home/post/p-220…
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I had such a great time talking about Baby-Sitters Club, love of my youth, with Connecticut Public Radio. They have a full BSC podcast!
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First episode is here, it's rad ctpublic.org/podcast/generat…
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My last story for Vox is up! I looked at the rise in social deduction games like Blood on the Clocktower. They create a safe space for anti-social behavior like lying — which ironically helps create pro-social bonds.
The kicker in this story is one of my favorite anecdotes I've ever reported, a true delight vox.com/the-highlight/499862…
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huge thanks to @ZeeshanAleem for connecting me to this great team! ms.now/opinion/anthony-bourd…
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All right, here's my first order of business. Like all unemployed arts journalists, I am going to start a newsletter. But I've got a couple options for the focus.
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Well, I have been laid off from Vox after 10 years there. It has been the honor and the privilege of a lifetime to get to work with such brilliant people for so long.
So there's an interesting debate happening in publishing that I think people outside the industry don't know about. When kids' reading scores started going down, so did sales of middle-grade books. But the industry disagrees on the cause and effect here.
Because for the past 20 years or so, middle-grade books have also been getting super long! So some people think that kids stopped reading because they stopped being able to find books that were actually suitable to their grade level.
vox.com/culture/499624/middl…
I am fascinated by all the videos I have seen of women demonstrating their beautiful digital wardrobe catalogs and telling me that they will save the planet. So I tried making one myself.
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It does appear that if you can stick with a wardrobe app, it will help you shop less! It's the sticking with it that's tricky vox.com/culture/497499/wardr…
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Super interesting conversation about how there's a huge untapped potential for pro-social and pro-democracy campaigns within video game communities
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There's tons of bad actors in the video game world, but Osborn really makes a great case that it offers a lot of possibilities for making people's lives better, especially in terms of the male loneliness crisis vox.com/culture/498216/power…
How video games can make young men feel less alone
The untapped political potential of gaming.
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I thought @juliarebeccaj did a great job talking through the very tricky angles of what's going on with Ariana Grande at the NYT — I was glad to get to weigh in on the fan culture aspect nytimes.com/2026/08/04/arts/…
Responding to curiosity is physically satisfying, the mind is weird and interesting vox.com/life/496175/get-off-…
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If you've ever tried one of those wardrobe cataloging apps like Indyx, I would love to hear from you! Asking for a story.
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I researched the Hollywood trope of having everyone in period/fantasy movies speak The Queen's Latin. Spoiler: It's about British imperialism!
I love modern diction in a period piece and I am excited to see it here, changing up these old conventions rules vox.com/culture/495588/odyss…
hello, it is I, the lady who wants you to read all the classics! currently back on my bullshit in: re The Odyssey
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I also have a section walking you through which translation to pick! vox.com/culture/494949/odyss…
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there's something so psychologically compelling about Trump having spent his whole life trying to get famous people to like him, only to become president and find out that meant lots of famous people hate him
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the vulgar tragedy of Freedom 250 festival etc vox.com/culture/490471/trump…
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So the Anthropic copyright settlement website turned out to be extremely weird and glitchy! This moment is living rent free in my mind
I looked into what's making it act this way. The short version is, pirated metadata turns out to be a bad thing to build a class action settlement on vox.com/culture/487860/anthr…
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I wrote about Lena Dunham, how she became a symbol of cancel culture, and whether we've all changed since 2014 vox.com/culture/487006/lena-…
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