Stacey Ballis
Verified
(She/Her)
As seen in:
MSN,
MSN Singapore,
Yahoo Life,
MSN India,
MSN Malaysia,
Yahoo Canada,
Aol,
Allrecipes,
Chicago Tribune,
Flipboard
and
Covers:
Food, beverage, hospitality, lifestyle, travel, home decor, entertaining, recipe development and testing, culinary products and equipment, education, and the arts.
Doesn't Cover:
Business, finance, tech, politics.
Interview
What was your first job as a journalist?
Celebrity profile for an airline in-flight magazine.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes, I learned how to type on an IBM Selectric.
How is social media changing news?
Not necessarily for the better.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday)
What does it mean to be a journalist?
To be the teller of stories, the keeper of secrets, and the last line of defense of the truth.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
By people who have a sense of what I write and cover. The best pitches have always come from people who read a specific article
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Hands and brain mostly.
What's your favorite social network?
My actual live in-person group of friends and family. No screens or wifi necessary. The password is a dish to share or a good bottle of wine.
Who do you wish followed you?
Roxane Gay, Melissa McCarthy, Sue Perkins, Dominique Crenn, Jose Andres, Barbara Lynch, Chrissy Teigen, Maya Mavjee, Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Why did you become a journalist?
Because the novels take a long time and pay very little, so I needed another income stream that was creative and protected my independence
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
Not the newspaper, but I did work on the high school literary magazine. Poetry and short fiction.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
A piece about the Brown in the South dinner series from chefs of Indian and Southeast Asian descent living and working in the American South
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Do anything else. Unless you can't. And then read everything, and write all the time. Don't be precious, the writing happens in the editing.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Late morning
What's the best pitch you ever got?
Haven't gotten it yet, so the gauntlet is thrown!
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
Plant-based butter. It's margarine. Just call it margarine.
What's your favorite drink?
Grower champagne.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
In the kitchen.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
Gravy, the magazine from The Southern Foodways Alliance. They are telling the stories that need to be told, and using amazing writers
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That culinary is fluffy and unimportant, and that the writing is easy. But every story comes down to food.
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.