Nicole Cliffe (born September 2, 1982) is a Canadian writer living in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, who co-founded and co-edited the website ''

The Toast ''The Toast'' was an American anthology, humor and feminist writing website, founded by editors Nicole Cliffe and Daniel M. Lavery (né Ortberg) and publisher Nicholas Pavich. It was active from January 2013 through July 2016. Content and targ ...

'' with

Daniel Lavery Daniel M. Lavery (born Mallory Ortberg, November 28, 1986) is an American author and editor. He is known for having co-founded the website ''The Toast'', and written the books ''Texts from Jane Eyre'' (2014), ''The Merry Spinster'' (2018), and '' ...

Early life

Nicole Cliffe was born September 2, 1982 and grew up in Kingston, Ontario. A first-generation college student, she attended

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

on a full scholarship, studying English. She graduated in 2005. At Harvard, her friends included future journalists Amelia Lester,

Matthew Yglesias Matthew Yglesias (; born May 18, 1981) is a liberal American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics. Yglesias has written columns and articles for publications such as ''The American Prospect'', ''The Atlantic'', and ''Sla ...

, and

Josh Barro Joshua A. Barro is an American journalist and creator of the newsletter and podcast ''Very Serious''. He previously hosted the weekly radio program '' Left, Right, & Center'' based at KCRW Los Angeles and served as a senior editor and columnist a ...

Career

Early career

Cliffe worked at a New York

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

before becoming a writer. She drew attention for a

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

entitled Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews as well as a recurring book review column on

The Awl ''The Awl'' was a website about "news, ideas and obscure Internet minutiae of the day" based in New York City. Its motto was "Be Less Stupid." History Founded in April 2009 by David Cho and former ''Gawker'' editors Choire Sicha and Alex Balk ...

called "Classic Trash". In June 2011 Cliffe joined the Awl-network women's general interest site

The Hairpin ''The Hairpin'' was a women's website in The Awl network. It was founded in 2010 by Edith Zimmerman. It ceased publication at the end of January 2018. From 2013 to 2014, ''The Hairpin'' was edited by Emma Carmichael, with Jia Tolentino as contri ...

, where she became book editor. Through this work, Cliffe met future collaborator

, first over the internet, then later in person.

The Toast

Cliffe and Lavery left The Hairpin in 2013 to found a separate feminist general interest website The Toast, which Cliffe and Lavery co-edited, later adding

Nicole Chung Nicole Chung (born May 5, 1981) is an American writer and editor. She is the former managing editor of ''The Toast'', the editor-in-chief of ''Catapult'' magazine, and the author of the memoir ''All You Can Ever Know''. Early life and education ...

as managing editor and Jaya Saxena as a staff writer. (Lawyer Nick Pavich was originally the publisher and one-third owner of the site, but departed in the winter of 2013–2014). Cliffe and her husband funded the site's launch. The Toast published from July 1, 2013, until July 1, 2016. From October 15, 2014, to September 2015, the project also included a sister site called The Butter; led by

Roxane Gay Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of ''The New York Times'' best-selling essay collection '' Bad Feminist'' (2014), as well as the short story collection ''Ayit ...

, The Butter focused on personal essays and cultural criticism. The Toast made a one-day return with new material on July 26, 2017.

Writing and other projects

In addition to her editing and book reviews, Cliffe has drawn notice for her writing on a wide range of topics, including humor pieces, collegiate financial aid, and

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

Christianity. She has written advice columns for ''Elle'' and Catapult's magazine, and in January 2018, became an advice columnist, with

Carvell Wallace Carvell Wallace (born October 20, 1974 in McKeesport, PA) is a ''New York Times'' bestselling author, writer, and podcaster. He is a regular contributor to ''Pitchfork'', MTV News, the '' Huffington Post'', and '' Slate'', and has written for ''The ...

, at

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

. Their column, offering parenting advice, is called "Care and Feeding". She left Slate in 2020. In December 2017, Cliffe joined the board of directors of ''

Electric Literature ''Electric Literature'' is an independent publisher founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum in 2009 as a quarterly journal. It launched the first fiction magazine on the iPhone and iPad. The print version of the journal is produced via print ...

''. In October 2019, Cliffe was credited as an executive producer for the documentary "The Acid King", based on the non-fiction book of the same name about the life of

Ricky Kasso Richard Allan "Ricky" Kasso Jr. (March 29, 1967 – July 7, 1984), also known as The Acid King, was an American killer who murdered his 17-year-old friend Gary Lauwers in Northport, New York on June 19, 1984. Two other teens, Jimmy Troiano and Al ...

. In June 2020, Cliffe told Vox she was writing a horror novel, which she later confirmed via Twitter.

Personal life

Cliffe lives in

with her husband and three children. An

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

since college, she converted to Christianity in 2015. She is

autistic The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...

, as is one of her children.

References

External links

Slate

Nicole Knows

The Toast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cliffe, Nicole 1982 births Living people Journalists from Ontario Canadian emigrants to the United States Writers from Kingston, Ontario Canadian arts journalists Canadian feminist writers Canadian satirists Converts to Protestantism from atheism or agnosticism Harvard College alumni Writers from Utah Canadian editors Canadian women editors Canadian women journalists People on the autism spectrum Canadian Christians