Tessa OkonkwoBrooklyn, NY

Writer

Tessa Okonkwo

Essayist & Newsletter Writer

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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.

The Quiet Death of the Group Chat

01 · The Atlantic · Essay

The Quiet Death of the Group Chat

The Atlantic — an essay on how our smallest digital rooms reshape friendship. 2024.

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Inside the Prompt Economy

02 · Wired · Feature

Inside the Prompt Economy

Wired — a reported feature on the people quietly making a living writing for machines.

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What We Lost When Search Got Good

03 · The Guardian · Essay

What We Lost When Search Got Good

The Guardian — on serendipity, the open web, and the cost of answers.

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Signal / Noise — the newsletter

04 · Newsletter · 40k readers

Signal / Noise — the newsletter

Weekly essays on tech and culture for 40,000 readers. Archive and best-of.

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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.

Clarity · Reporting · Curiosity · Reader-first

Commissions

Feature writing
Essays & op-eds
Ghostwriting (founders & execs)
Editing
Keynotes & panels

Open to features, select ghostwriting, and speaking.

Features from $2/word · Ghostwriting by retainer

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Background

2020 – Present

Independent Writer · Self-published + freelance

Grew a newsletter to 40k subscribers. Features for The Atlantic, Wired, and The Guardian.

2016 – 2020

Staff Writer · The Verge

Covered the culture-and-technology beat; two features nominated for industry awards.

2012 – 2016

Reporter · Local daily

Cut my teeth on city-desk reporting and deadlines.

BA, English & Journalism — Columbia University 2012

Long-form features · Essays · Reporting · Newsletters · Ghostwriting · Editing · Interviewing

Résumé

Words

“Tessa files clean, reports hard, and finds the sentence everyone else missed. A dream byline.”
Editor, The Atlantic
“The only newsletter I read the moment it lands. She makes the overwhelming feel legible.”
A subscriber, among 40,000

Recognition

  • National Magazine Award — finalist 2023
  • 40,000 newsletter subscribers
  • Bylines: Atlantic, Wired, Guardian, Verge

Get in touch

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