GAIL SHEEHY became a Vanity Fair contributing editor in 1984. She has written character portraits of George H. W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Robert Dole, Gary Hart, Margaret Thatcher, Jesse Jackson, Saddam Hussein, and Newt Gingrich. Her article “Hillary’s Choice,” which examined the relationship between President and Mrs. Clinton, won the 1999 Front Page Award and became a book. Sheehy, an original contributor to New York, whose work has appeared in publications such as Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and Parade, is the author of Passages, The Silent Passage, and Sex and the Seasoned Woman, among other titles.
The late INGRID SISCHY was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and, along with her partner, Sandra Brant, was international editor of Condé Nast’s European editions. Sischy, who wrote photography and fashion criticism for The New Yorker in the 1980s and 90s, served as the editor in chief of both ArtForum (from 1979 to 1987) and Interview (from 1989 to 2008). A respected authority in the often overlapping spheres of art, fashion, and journalism, Sischy was the author of photography monographs, articles for publications such as The New York Times, and the 2018 posthumous collection Nothing Is Lost.
KRISTA SMITH joined Vanity Fair in 1988 and became the magazine’s West Coast editor in 1993. She served as Vanity Fair’s executive West Coast editor until 2019. Smith has written cover stories on personalities such as Drew Barrymore, Jude Law, Salma Hayek, and Gwyneth Paltrow, and helped shepherd twenty-five editions of the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue. She also profiled rising talent for the “Vanities” section and interviewed filmmakers and actors on camera at the Sundance and Toronto film festivals.
SALLY BEDELL SMITH, a V.F. contributing editor during the 1990s and 2000s, began her career at Time, where she was a reporter-researcher from 1973 to 1977. As a staff writer for TV Guide, she produced feature articles and a weekly column. In 1982, Smith became a cultural news reporter for The New York Times. Smith’s books have explored the House of Windsor, the White House years of the Kennedys and Clintons, and the lives of figures such as Pamela Harriman and William Paley.
SHEILA WELLER, a contributor to Vanity Fair, is an award-winning magazine journalist and a New York Times best-selling author of seven books, including Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation. She is a senior contributing editor at Glamour and a former contributing editor of New York.
The late MARJORIE WILLIAMS was a reporter and columnist for The Washington Post and Vanity Fair. Her V.F. features have included profiles of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Colin Powell. Her V.F. essay about her experience with cancer won a National Magazine Award. She is the author of two posthumous collections, edited by her husband, Timothy Noah: The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate and Reputation: Portraits in Power. The former book won the PEN America’s Martha Albrand Award.
SUSAN WOJCICKI has been the CEO of YouTube since 2014. Wojcicki was a founding member of Google, and in 1999 became the company’s first marketing manager. After tracking the success of YouTube, she proposed that Google acquire the video platform, which Google did, in 2006. Under Wojcicki’s leadership, YouTube has reached 1.9 billion logged-in users per month and, on her watch, the company’s percentage of female employees has risen.
JACQUELINE WOODSON won the National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, a memoir in verse. She is the recipient of numerous citations for her children’s and young adult works, including the Coretta Scott King Book Award for Miracle’s Boys, which was adapted into a miniseries by Spike Lee; the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Each Kindness; the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award; and four Newbery Honors. Woodson, the author of adult books as well, was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation and the 2018–19 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Radhika Jones is the editor in chief of Vanity Fair. She has served as editorial director of the books department at The New York Times, deputy managing editor of Time, and managing editor at The Paris Review. She holds a PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia University.
David Friend, a writer, editor, curator, and formerly Life magazine’s director of photography, is Vanity Fair’s editor of creative development. He is the author of The Naughty Nineties and Watching the World Change, and an Emmy-winning documentary producer.
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Vanity Fair's Women on Women Page 51