➜ ~ whoami
Tessa Okonkwo
Essayist & Newsletter Writer
➜ cat bio.txt
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.
➜ ~ stats --all
40k
Subscribers
120+
Features
12
Years
➜ ~ ls ./links
➜ ~ cat about.md
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.
// mission: Write the sentence that makes a complicated thing finally click.
const values = ["Clarity", "Reporting", "Curiosity", "Reader-first"]
➜ ~ cat experience.log
# 12 years in journalism, essays, and independent publishing
Independent Writer
2020 – Present@ Self-published + freelance
Grew a newsletter to 40k subscribers. Features for The Atlantic, Wired, and The Guardian.
Staff Writer
2016 – 2020@ The Verge
Covered the culture-and-technology beat; two features nominated for industry awards.
Reporter
2012 – 2016@ Local daily
Cut my teeth on city-desk reporting and deadlines.
edu: BA, English & Journalism @ Columbia University (2012)
➜ ~ ls ./projects
▸ 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
➜ ~ cat services.json
collab: Open to features, select ghostwriting, and speaking.
pricing: Features from $2/word · Ghostwriting by retainer
➜ ~ cat reviews.md
> 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
➜ ~ cat achievements.log
- ✓ National Magazine Award — finalist 2023
- ✓ 40,000 newsletter subscribers
- ✓ Bylines: Atlantic, Wired, Guardian, Verge
➜ ~ cat contact.sh
# speaks: English, Igbo