After creating the “accidental empire” Scary Mommy, Jill Smokler is ready to go deep with her new project, She’s Got Issues—a site devoted to helping women navigate midlife. And she wasn’t afraid to go deep with us about her apprehensions about eldercare, why her marriage failed (and not just because her ex-husband is gay), and the challenge of adapting her skills and strategies for modern media.
Jill’s youngest child will graduate high school right as her parents turn 80, so she’s thinking a lot about the opportunities and responsibilities that are waiting for her. Her experience as a younger mom may have inspired a logo full of “snakes and lions and blood and daggers,” but in the context of her new business partnership and her all-too-public divorce, that image seems a little tame.
We also talk about skepticism over couples counseling, the singular weirdness of candle salad, and that time she made up an assistant to perform triage on editorial pitches.
Other links
Read Jill’s best-selling book, Confessions of a Scary Mommy
The Edgarbug craves “Sugar … in water.”
Episode 41: "It was all snakes and lions and blood and daggers."