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Alison Stewart: This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Allison Stewart. One of the most definitive publications to emerge from the Gen X era was a spunky, irreverent magazine aimed at teens called Sassy. Launched in the late '80s, it was embraced for its directness. It was helmed by a young Oberlin graduate who got the top job, allegedly because she was the youngest applicant. The applicant was Jane Pratt, whose style of journalism was first person confessionals and community input long before blogs and TikTok. Sassy included not just celebrity interviews, but featured writing submitted by its readers.

It's touched on sex, politics, humor, and style. For example, the title of an article might be, "How's that Drug War Going," or, "You think you're ready for sex? Read this first." After nearly a decade of success, Sassy was absorbed into Teen Magazine, and Jane went on to launch the magazine Jane, and then the online magazine Jane XO. Now, Pratt is jumping back into the content biz, this time with a subscription based newsletter on Substack. It's called Another Jane Pratt Thing. We have Jane Pratt here in the studio to talk about it. Hi, Jane.

Jane Pratt: It's so good to be here with you.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to get you in on the conversation. Were you a Sassy reader? Jane? Jane XO? What memories of those publications and their impact did they have on you? Did you aspire to become a writer or get into music or fashion? 212-433-9692. 212-433-WYNC. You can call in, you can join us on air, or you can text to us at that number. 212-433-WYNC. 212-433-9692. Jane, why did you decide to get back in the game?

Jane Pratt: First of all, I want to say to those people, please do call or text. Because I love to hear from all the people that I've raised. That's how I feel about it. I'm like, "Oh, I did a good job with you. Okay. You turned out just fine. Thank you."

Alison Stewart: Why are you joining them now in the game?

Jane Pratt: Why am I doing it again? It's tongue in cheek to say Another Jane Pratt Thing, but it is. If I felt like everything that I set out to do with Sassy magazine, 38-something years ago-- If I felt like that was all taken care of, I think that I would just go and live a nice, quiet life. I feel like there's still some of the same things that I was pushing the boundaries on back then and getting in trouble for and starting conversations about, are still problems or are back as problems. I feel like there's still a need for really open, non-judgmental conversation around tricky topics.

Alison Stewart: You talked to us when we were teenagers and then adult women and then 18 to 34, and then you jumped into the sandwich generation, 40 to early 50s. Who do you see this Substack for?

Jane Pratt: Back when I was starting, even back when I was starting Jane magazine, which was in the late 90s. I'm trying to remember the dates. Even then, I didn't want to make a publication that was strictly for women. We were advertising driven, so the advertisers were supporting it. I had to fit a certain niche and say, it's for women 18 to 49, just so that-- [crosstalk] Just so that we would attract the advertisers that wanted that audience. I always felt like it's very arbitrary and old fashioned to say it's a magazine for women or women's media. What does that even mean?

This was finally, because now doing this on Substack, it's not advertising driven. I have no corporate backers or anything like that that I have to answer to in that way. I was able to do it the way that I want to do it, which is to say, it's for all people. It's for all ages, all genders. As I get older, too, I don't want to be classified as being only interested in certain things because I am 61-years-old. I want to still have the same conversations with everyone.

Alison Stewart: In getting your staff together, you have a couple of key guidelines on who you look for. One of them was, employ a bunch of freaks freakier than you.

Jane Pratt: Oh, yes. That's really key. I'm a freak. To find people freakier-- They can be freaky in different ways, but that is a big component of the publications that I like to try to create. Having people who are very willing to be open about themselves, and not just present a certain facade. I find that if the people who are putting out the publication are willing to say, "I don't have all the answers," or, "I made this mistake. What would you do in this situation?" I think it's more welcoming for readers to say, I get it. I can be part of this conversation too.

I can talk about what mistakes I think that I'm making or what I don't know about. Being open in that way, to talking about what you don't know or what you haven't figured out yet is sometimes more valuable than hearing from someone who has gone through everything and figured it all out.

Alison Stewart: How did you assemble your team?

Jane Pratt: This was funny. I loved this process so much. I looked a lot of different places. I put out an ad on-- I put something on LinkedIn. I'm still pretty bad with social media. I have to admit. I put something on LinkedIn, and I got the word out through, at the time, it was Twitter and different places. I got people started talking about the fact that something new was coming. I started getting applications from people. The ones that I have on staff right now are exactly the ones I would have wanted and the ones I would have even created in my own head.

I have amazing-- This guy, Charlie Connell, who is just friggin' hilarious and phenomenal, who I didn't know of before. Vanessa DeLuca, who was at Essence Magazine for many years, is also incredible. Someone named Ani Ferlise, who I found her, she wasn't doing any of this kind of work. That's also my favorite thing, to take someone who's not necessarily in the business and bring them in.

Alison Stewart: Do you nourish that relationship with people, who are your colleagues?

Jane Pratt: Yes, that's my favorite thing to do. As a matter of fact, I had to hand off my phone to your producer right before we started here, because I was right in the middle of giving feedback on something to someone who had written a Poe quote, a little caption to go over a photo. It wasn't precisely as great as I know they can do. I was giving a little feedback to maybe make it even a little bit stronger.

Alison Stewart: One of your rules, or guidelines we'll say, is "Use your disdain to fuel your own adventures."

Jane Pratt: Oh. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's really key. I'd forgotten that I said that, but I did. That is really important. When I look at other publications or other media, if I feel like it's not serving people well, I-- That's also partly why I like to have a platform, because I like to feel like, "Okay, now I can go to Another Jane Pratt Thing and present this in a way that is more open minded and more freeing for people. Whether it's seeing visuals of people that are overly photoshopped and wanting to change that, or discussion of something that I think is-- Like the age thing. People talking about people over a certain age as though they're not relevant anymore. I like to come in and combat that. Yes.

Alison Stewart: What made you learn that lesson? To use your disdain about something to fuel your passion.

Jane Pratt: Wow, that's such a good question, Alison. I would say, I'm going to go way back, when I was 15 and I was at boarding school and I did not fit in. I would go to the newsstand and I would look at the magazines there, particularly 17 Magazine. I would be looking for some connection because I didn't have people around me that seemed like me. I was a complete scholarship kid from the south. When I looked at these magazines, I felt even more alienated because they really didn't look like me. They exponentially didn't look like me and didn't seem to have the life that I had or the cares that I had or the worries or any of it.

That was probably the first real example of me thinking, "Let me take this feeling that I have and turn it into something positive for other people." That instantly made me feel better knowing I could do that.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Jane Pratt. She's got a new Substack called, Another Jane Pratt Thing. Let's go to some callers. This is Allison calling in from Rye. Hi, Allison

Allison: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi.

Allison: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm a huge fan of Jane's and have been since I was a teenager in Pennsylvania. When I first got a Sassy subscription, I think I was 12. I want to say thank you for the new Substack. I'm really excited about it.

Jane Pratt: Oh, I'm so glad. Isn't that--? It's really amazing to me when I hear your voice and everything and describing how you liked Sassy at such a young age. Then I feel like I've known you so long. It's really been a long time. We grew up together.

Alison Stewart: Yes. There's a great quote. There's a good text here. It says, "I used my babysitting money to subscribe to Sassy when I was in high school. I loved the posters. I had Robert Smith's lips on my bedroom wall for years. Thanks, Jane."

Jane Pratt: I love it. I remember that one.

Alison Stewart: Where's the funniest place that someone has said to you, "Are you Jane Pratt from Sassy or from Jane?"

Jane Pratt: Oh, wow. It does happen. It happens. The funniest places are probably bathrooms. I like to have a good conversation in a bathroom. It's like you're a little bit-- You don't have to rush off. You can stand there for a minute and talk. That's probably that, yes.

Alison Stewart: It's clear that engagement is really important to you and community is really important to you. We've got social media now. A lot has changed with TikTok, Discord, Telegraph. What are your plans going forward for engagement?

Jane Pratt: Yes, I love-- Even back when I started Sassy-- I feel like I'm talking like such an old historian of myself. Back when I started Sassy, I was trying to do, before it was called social media, that kind of interactive journalism. I would put on the spine of the magazine, "Should Jane get a nose ring?" Then we had to wait. We had to wait three months for the thing to get printed. Then we had to wait for the US mail service to get us their votes back in as to whether I should get a nose ring or not. We did it, and I did go get the nose ring and did it on camera and everything. I feel like I've been-- I love that back and forth, and I always have.

To me, I'm not someone who-- I don't think that I'm good at just writing something. If I were to write a newsletter and put it out there for people to read, that's not-- I think that what I love and what I'm better at is the conversation that follows. The letter. I would say, in terms of going forward, it's about using the social media that's there right now and then continuing to embrace and be open to and excited about the new ways that people are communicating with each other.

Alison Stewart: You famously had ads pulled when you published controversial stories about gay teens, young women, sex, stuff you see nowadays. What did you learn from that experience, and what are some of the topics you think you might cover on Another Jane Pratt Thing?

Jane Pratt: Okay. Such a good question. I would say that I should have learned a lot more of a lesson from that than I did. I did exactly what you said. Stuff on gay teens, stuff on birth control, and stuff that caused us to lose the majority of our major advertisers all in one fell swoop. We also, because there was a boycott that was backed by the moral majority at the time-- Those people were writing into and going into their local newsstands and saying, "I won't shop here if you sell Sassy." We were taken off 70% of our newsstands also. That was a big blow. You would think I would have said, "Jane, don't write about that stuff anymore. Take a step back." No, I haven't done that.

I've figured out ways to be able to talk about that stuff and still make it commercially viable. Right now that's through this platform where-- By the way, people can go onto Another Jane Pratt Thing for free also and see almost everything up there. Yes, that's how I'm doing it now without having to worry about how it will affect advertisers or newsstands or whatever.

Alison Stewart: We got some good texts. "Sassy had such an enormous influence on me. Yes, the content, the tone of the writing, all great, but for me, it was the photography and designed. A core memory of seeing editorial design that wasn't mainstream, cookie cutter. The layout and type had a feeling and emotion. I do think this contributed to sparking an early love of design, leading me to get my BFA and MFA in design. I'm now a university professor that teaches a class in editorial design. Thank you, Jane."

Jane Pratt: Yes. Oh, God. That's the perfect example. I raised you well. That makes me feel so immensely proud.

Alison Stewart: Here's another one. "Not sure if the original Sassy was the inspiration, but one of the best publications today for staying on top of the latest and what's happening in Hong Kong is named Sassy Hong Kong."

Jane Pratt: Oh.

Alison Stewart: "We lived there for a stretch and Sassy HK was always vital to finding out what was going on about town. It helps to have an evocative name."

Jane Pratt: That's cool.

Alison Stewart: That's pretty cool.

Jane Pratt: Amazing.

Alison Stewart: When you sit down and you think about your editorial principles, what are they? What's important to you?

Jane Pratt: Oh, gosh. Most of all, honesty. When I say that, I don't mean authenticity. I don't mean appearing to be real. I mean actual honesty, which is a harder thing to find and more difficult for writers and people to produce. Because everyone has their things they want to cover for or how they want to appear. Real honesty. One of my rules always has been to write the way that you talk. That's a lot of, especially the early days of a new publication like this one. A lot of my time is spent saying, "Would you really say that if you were saying that to a friend? Is that the wording you would choose?"

Getting rid of all that, the classic ones are things like, if you're writing about beauty stuff, you don't say tresses or you don't say you're mane, you say your hair. That's one example. Getting people to write the way that they talk is a big one for me. Yes.

Alison Stewart: How often do you think about, how is this going to stand out? Because there's so much content right now. How do you stand out in 2024?

Jane Pratt: Yes, that is a really great question. It's an experiment for me right now to see if really following all of these policies about integrity and honesty and exposing things that other people might not be exposing, to see if that still can resonate with people and make an impact when there is so much out there. Going into this, I can't say, "I know for sure," but it's been really gratifying to see the people that are coming forward and saying, "Yes, I remember this. I remember this tone, this voice. This is what I need. This is what I grew up with and now my daughter can have this." Standing out is-- I don't try to stand out. I try to be true to what we're doing.

Alison Stewart: You have a daughter in college?

Jane Pratt: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What gives you hope for your daughter in college?

Jane Pratt: Oh, wow. She's amazing. She has none of the insecurities that I had when I was her age. Jesus. It's really incredible. Wow. What gives me hope is-- For her specifically, what an individual she is and how proud she is to be an individual and how much she is not trying to fit in to any kind of mold that she's seeing out there and how incredibly open minded and nonjudgmental she is about other people and how curious she is. I think that's a really big one because I think if you're curious, it really fuels a lot. Then what gives me hope in the world, I hope that things will keep changing in the right direction.

Alison Stewart: The name of the Substack is Another Jane Pratt Thing. Jane, thanks for coming to the studio.

Jane Pratt: Oh, I can't thank you enough. Thank you, Alison.