Mark Your Calendars for Open Secrets Live in NYC on May 3, 2025
Jane Pratt is our opening keynote speaker!
Open Secrets Magazine editor Rachel Kramer Bussel here. I wanted to let you know about the biggest news in the world of Open Secrets Magazine aside from our call for submissions for personal essays closing on December 31, 2024.
On Saturday, May 3, 2025 from 8:30-5 in New York City (Upper East Side), we will be hosting Open Secrets Live, a 1-day personal storytelling summit all about personal storytelling! Panels will cover relationships, family, identity, LGBTQIA life, mental health, and work. Over two dozen panelists include essayists, memoir authors, and storytellers from various fields sharing their life stories and the power of baring their souls to the public. There will also be an editors panel where editors from publications including Narratively and Another Jane Pratt Thing and others, along with an editor from a Big Five publisher, reveal what types of essays and manuscripts they’re looking for. This panel will be geared toward essay writers and there will be time for Q&A.
$25 early bird tickets are available via Eventbrite through January 31, 2025 or until they’re sold out. Price increases to $35 on February 1, 2025.
Light refreshments will be served. The event will be held in an ADA compliant space.
All the speaker details so far are below, and early bird tickets will go on sale Tuesday, January 7, 2025 and the price will go up February 1. Open Secrets subscribers will be the first to know when tickets are available!
I used to run a reading series and over the five years of its existence, 300 writers and performers were part of it. I miss that in-the-room, anything-can-happen energy of a live event. It’s harder for me to organize them now that I’m a mom and living in suburbia vs. when I was on my own in New York, but this has come together very smoothly so far.
This is my first time organizing a conference-like event and I’m both very excited about the lineup of talent below, and a little nervous to be working on a project of this scope. But I also know that I enjoy trying new things and am thrilled to have keynote speaker (of Sassy, Jane, xoJane, and now, Another Jane Pratt Thing fame). Final lineup in progress.
Since the event is being held in a 185-seat venue, I expect it to sell out quickly, so you may want to mark your calendars for the on-sale date of January 7. I’ll update the official Open Secrets Live page with ticket info and more speakers as they’re confirmed.
Have questions or want to sponsor or write about Open Secrets Live? Email opensecretsmag at gmail dot com
As of today, here are our confirmed speakers:
Rachel Kramer Bussel, Editor and Founder, Open Secrets Magazine * (Substack:
), author of memoir in essays And You May Find Yourself...: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo, editor of , , and
Lester Fabian Brathwaite, author of memoir Rage: On Being Queer, Black, Brilliant…and Completely Over It
Andrea King Collier, journalist, author, and storyteller
, deputy editor,
Katina Corrao, comedian, actress, and author *
Ella Dawson, sex and culture critic, author of But How Are You, Really
John DeVore, author of memoir Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway * (Substack: )
Veena Dinavahi, author of memoir The True Happiness Company: How a Girl Like Me Falls for a Cult Like That
Dirty Lola, sex edutainor
Kelli Dunham, writer and comedian * (Substack: )
Kari Ferrell, author of You'll Never Believe Me: A Life of Lies, Second Tries, and Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist (Substack )
Michele Filgate, editor of anthologies What My Father and Don’t Talk About and What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About
Dionne Ford, author of Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing
Ellen Friedrichs, author of Good Sexual Citizenship *
Edgar Gomez, author of memoirs High-Risk Homosexual and Alligator Tears
Nikkya Hargrove, author of Mama: A Queer Black Woman’s Story of a Family Lost and Found
Rob Hart, author of Assassins Anonymous * (Substack: )
Twanna A. Hines, entrepreneur and sexual health educator
Aymann Ismail, Slate staff writer and author of memoir Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America
, essayist, critic, and author of essay collection I Want to Burn This Place Down
Janine Kwoh, author of Welcome to the Grief Club and founder of stationery brand Kwohtations
Emily McCombs, deputy editor, HuffPost Personal
Judy McGuire, author of How Not to Date
Debbie Millman, author of Love Letter to a Garden and host of the Design Matters podcast
Gabrielle Alexa Noel, content creator and author of How to Live With the Internet and Not Let It Run Your Life
Tracy O’Neill, author of memoir Woman of Interest
Jane Pratt, editor, Another Jane Pratt Thing
Arianna Rebolini, author of memoir Better: A Memoir About Wanting to Die
Rakesh Satyal, executive editor, HarperCollins, and author of novel No One Can Pronounce My Name
Alex Segura, author of Alter Ego *
Linda Simpson, nightlife promoter, game show host, and author of PAGES and The Drag Explosion
Hyeseung Song, author of memoir Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl
Jesse Sposato, executive editor, Narratively
Nichelle Stephens, comedian and writer
Guinevere Turner, author of memoir When the World Didn’t End *
Jamia Wilson, vice president/executive editor, Random House, author of Make Good Trouble: Discover Movements That Sparked Change
Molly Roden Winter, author of More: A Memoir of Open Marriage
Carmen Rita Wong, author of memoir Why Didn’t You Tell Me?
, author of memoir Boyslut
Kew & Willow Books will be our onsite bookseller. You can also buy copies of our Open Secrets Live speakers’ books from their online store.
Want to help make this event possible and enable us to continue to commission new essays? Consider making a donation in any amount, upgrading your subscription, and liking, commenting on, and sharing this post!
We are funded by readers and I’ve been supplementing payments from my savings when we fall short, but that’s not sustainable in the long run. People have asked if I plan to do another event or post another call for essays and the answer is: I hope to! But I have a new baby (read a little about that here) and expenses of my own, so I’m on the lookout for grants or other funding as well as ways to spread the word.
I’m very proud that we went from around 1,800 subscribers in June to over 4,000 today. THANK YOU for sharing our essays, for your thoughtful comments, and to all who’ve submitted work. Please know that while I can’t respond personally to all submissions, I appreciate every one that’s written by a human (to those submitting AI-generated work, you are sullying the genre and wasting actual human editors’ time and energy and making me far less likely to want to post public calls for work).
I’m honored to be growing and expanding Open Secrets Magazine in 2025, and am working on other projects, including a podcast related to our Stuff-ed vertical, I’m excited to share with you!
This looks like a fantastic event/program, so excited to see you grow Open Secrets in this way, Rachel. What a great community you are building!
Wow! This looks like such a fantastic event. What a line up!