Ask A Subscriber: Q&A With Taylor Crumpton

Taylor Crumpton is a Study Hall subscriber with bylines in The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Essence, NPR, and other outlets. On October 13th, she hosted an AMA on our Slack channel and answered questions about freelancing, music journalism, and the state of the media industry. We have synthesized the exchange for subscribers who weren’t able to attend the AMA. 

If you’re interested in volunteering to host an AMA, please reach out to [email protected]. 

This AMA has been edited for length and clarity. Editor’s Note: some questions were rewritten to protect participants’ identities. 

Study Hall: How did you start freelancing?

Taylor Crumpton: I was on Twitter (I will never call that platform X) as an undergraduate at Abilene Christian University. At the time, I was organizing for abortion rights and reproductive justice on campus and in the surrounding area in West Texas. Around that time, the Whole Woman’s Health case was being brought to SCOTUS and publications were covering it.

The then-EIC of Glamour put out a call for pitches and I responded to her with a tweet, which resulted in my first published article which was about girls conducting DIY abortions on campus. Oftentimes, areas like West Texas and the greater Southwest are left out of broader conversations, so I was happy to highlight the region at the time.

That article inspired me to seek out reproductive justice fellowships with a writing angle, so I participated in URGE: Unite for Reproductive Gender & Equity Student Journalism Program, which gave me the confidence to pitch to Teen Vogue after the election of Donald Trump. There, I contributed to their news and politics verticals until I grew tired of writing about politics, and transitioned to music and culture writing.