Celebrating Women

I have a little history of writing tributes for Women’s History Month. The first year I did my obvious fav, my incredible sister Meredith and last year I did my mom, and tbh after that I was like “omg how lame is this going to get if I only ever do my family members…”

But then I realized, I have a lot of amazing female family members you should meet and who absolutely deserve little shout-outs

. And actually, I know SO MANY really amazing women that you should meet.

So in the spirit of celebrating Women’s History every month, not just in March, I’m making it a personal goal to do one little profile feature on one of my friends a month. To not put the labor on them, I’ll be writing it without interviews, just shooting them the draft for review before I post it. If you'd be willing to let me do this about you, omg please DM ME!

Now, my subject for this year’s tribute post: the incredible, brilliant, generous, badass herself: Anna David.

If you’d told me this time last year that I’d be writing an International Women’s Day Post about Anna David, I’d have told you that it was more likely I’d be getting a restraining order from her.

Anna is a New York Times bestselling author of multiple books and she owns her own independent publishing company in Los Angeles California, where she spends her fabulous days with an adorable Persian cat Bernie and a partner whose name I don’t know because he’s not on Instagram. (You will find that little fact about her S/O is the first of many, many, things I have in common with Anna.)

If I’d had written about Anna this time last year, it would have come off as really creepy. Because I’d never actually met her before. Now, here I am, writing about her, as someone who works for her.

I found Anna, as anyone does, on Instagram. I’d been searching for a writing group and hers rose quickly to the top. Here’s the one thing though: Before I met Anna, I wanted to hate Anna.

She was so confident, and fun and flirty and shameless about her California girl upbringing and northeast coast education and her wild success as a publisher, writer, and recovery expert. She was everything I aspired to be when I grew up.

So naturally, I was jealous and determined to hate her and joined her writing group anyway.

In my first session, I was introduced to the Anna effect. Un-opposing from her unapologetic pink office and unafraid to give her writers what they needed, exactly how they needed it, Anna appeared. And within that first 45 minutes, I turned from would-be-hater to fan-girl.

Here’s the thing about meeting the person you want to be when you grow up, you can’t necessarily tell them that 45 minutes into knowing them. You don’t even know them yet!

I’m approaching a year of knowing Anna now and I was a little embarrassed to send her this piece because it’s a little creepy that I was like “I wrote about how much I love you will you read it and let me put it on the internet?”

But here we are. Over the past eight months, I’ve been able to get to know Anna, by reading her work, listening to her podcasts, and participating in her writing group. About three months into me still putting my makeup on for the writing groups she was attending trying to impress her… Anna reached out to me and asked if I’d be willing to take on a few freelance hours for her each week. It’s been the greatest job offer I’ve ever received.

I now freelance for Anna as a Social Media Strategist at Legacy LaunchPad publishing. In the year since I’ve known her, Anna has helped me discover, embrace and encourage part of myself I never even knew how nurture. She’s been the most unbelievable mentor a girl could ask for and let me tell you, this girl asks a lot (including this post.) Shes’ taken me from an aspiring woman in desperate need of a confidence boost who knew nothing about the publishing world and patiently, graciously, educated me and introduced me to an entire industry.

And she does this for other women every damn day. As she helps turn aspiring women like me into authors and makes sure they have the best chance of successfully sharing their story. She helps other women find their voice, because that vibe I first picked up on from her Instagram, its her authentic self and she fucking knows hers better than any client I’ve ever worked with.

There’s this incredible Glennon Doyle quote that I’m really proud of myself for not bringing up earlier but perfectly captures what Anna does everyday at Legacy Launch Pad.

“It is a blessing to know a free woman,” Doyle writes. “Sometimes she will stop by and hold up a mirror for you. She will help you remember who you are.”

Thanks for holding up the mirror for me Anna David. If we’ve gone from would-be haters to this in a year, I can’t wait to see what we accomplish next. One day at a time, of course.