Mark Your Calendars for Open Secrets Live in NYC on May 3, 2025
Jane Pratt and Sarah Cooper are our keynote speakers!
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 in New York City (Upper East Side), we will be hosting Open Secrets Live, a 1-day summit all about personal storytelling! Panels will cover relationships, family, identity, LGBTQIA life, work, mental health, and there will also be an editors panel geared toward essay writers.
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 speakers (of Sassy, Jane, xoJane, and now, Another Jane Pratt Thing fame), and comedian , author of the memoir Foolish, which I’m planning to read over my holiday break, on board. Even if you can’t make the event, I highly recommend subscribing to their publications/Substacks!
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 .
Sarah Cooper, author of memoir Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation
Katina Corrao, Comedian, actress, and author *
John DeVore, author of memoir Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway * (Substack:
)Dirty Lola, Sex educator
Kelli Dunham, Writer and comedian * (Substack:
)Dionne Ford, author of Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing
Ellen Friedrichs, author of Good Sexual Citizenship *
Rob Hart, author of Assassins Anonymous * (Substack:
)Twanna A. Hines, Entrepreneur and sexual health educator
Judy McGuire, author of How Not to Date
Tracy O’Neill, author of memoir Woman of Interest
Jane Pratt, Editor, Another Jane Pratt Thing
Alex Segura, author of Alter Ego *
Jesse Sposato, Executive Editor, Narratively (Substack:
)Nichelle Stephens, Comedian and writer
Guinevere Turner, author of memoir When the World Didn’t End *
, author of memoir Boyslut
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!