Tessa Okonkwo
Essayist & Newsletter Writer
Writer and essayist on technology, culture, and the strange ways they collide. Bylines in The Atlantic and Wired. I write a newsletter 40,000 people actually open.
40k
Subscribers
120+
Features
12
Years
About
I write to figure out what I think. For a decade that meant magazine features — long, reported pieces where I got to spend months inside a subject. Now most of my readers find me through my newsletter, where I write shorter and more often about the week's technology stories and what they're really about. The forms are different; the job is the same: pay attention, be honest, and respect the reader's time.
Write the sentence that makes a complicated thing finally click.
Track Record
12 years in journalism, essays, and independent publishing
Independent Writer
Self-published + freelance
Grew a newsletter to 40k subscribers. Features for The Atlantic, Wired, and The Guardian.
2020 – Present
Staff Writer
The Verge
Covered the culture-and-technology beat; two features nominated for industry awards.
2016 – 2020
Reporter
Local daily
Cut my teeth on city-desk reporting and deadlines.
2012 – 2016
Education
BA, English & Journalism — Columbia University · 2012
Skills
Long-form features · Essays · Reporting · Newsletters · Ghostwriting · Editing · Interviewing
Works
The Quiet Death of the Group Chat
The Atlantic — an essay on how our smallest digital rooms reshape friendship. 2024.
The Atlantic · Essay
Inside the Prompt Economy
Wired — a reported feature on the people quietly making a living writing for machines.
Wired · Feature
What We Lost When Search Got Good
The Guardian — on serendipity, the open web, and the cost of answers.
The Guardian · Essay
Signal / Noise — the newsletter
Weekly essays on tech and culture for 40,000 readers. Archive and best-of.
Newsletter · 40k readers
Services
Open to features, select ghostwriting, and speaking.
Features from $2/word · Ghostwriting by retainer
Word on the Street
“Tessa files clean, reports hard, and finds the sentence everyone else missed. A dream byline.”
“The only newsletter I read the moment it lands. She makes the overwhelming feel legible.”
Honors
- ★ National Magazine Award — finalist 2023
- ★ 40,000 newsletter subscribers
- ★ Bylines: Atlantic, Wired, Guardian, Verge