Are you a 40-year-old man who has never dated anyone over 25 and is hung up on your 19-year-old ex-girlfriend? Are you an ultra-religious twenty-something virgin who is having trouble meeting women? Do middle-aged men often harass you when you go for jogs? Need some advice? Georgetown graduate Amy Dickinson (CAS ‘81) will surely have your answer.
In early July, the Chicago Tribune hired Dickinson to fill the shoes of Esther Lederer, better known as Ann Landers. Dickinson’s column will be called Dear Amy.
A distant relative of the poet Emily Dickinson, Amy Dickinson was born and raised in the small town of Freeville, N.Y. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was a little kid,” she says.
After graduating from Georgetown with a major in English, she “held a very sad series of jobs in and around Georgetown.” Dickinson worked at a shop in Georgetown Park Mall, sold tickets at the now-defunct Biograph Theater, and even sang at hotel lounge. “Jobs in general are overrated,” she said.
Georgetown University helped her get her first “professional” job. “They put me in contact with this man who took pity on new graduates” says, and that man gave her a job in his public relations firm, which led to a job as a producer at NBC news.
Dickinson has been freelance writing for publications such as Time Magazine, The Washington Post, and O for 15 years. She wrote an article on the death and burial of Kurt Cobain for Esquire. “That was the coolest article I’ve ever worked on,” she said. “It gave me great street credibility.”
After her divorce twelve years ago, she began writing weekly columns for America Online News Channel about her experiences as a single mother. For the past seven years, her commentaries have been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Her work with NPR has allowed her to work with her favorite genre: comedy.
“I’ve always loved to write comedy,” she says.
The hardest part of her current job is the pace, Dickinson said. “It is a tremendous grind,” she said. “It requires me to do a lot of stuff I never really wanted to do.”
This job, however, is also her favorite. “I’m not being ingenuous,” she said. “This job is my best job. I love dealing with the reader a lot more that I expected to.”
So if you ever find yourself unable to meet members of the opposite sex, harassed by middle- aged men, unable to get over your ex who is twenty years your junior, or in any other kind of social bind with nowhere to turn, Dear Amy will probably have your answer.
