Rewrite Work, Write a New Chapter in Life with Maggie Bullock
In this episode of Good Enough for Now, Maggie Bullock shares some behind the scenes from her new book and what it was like to go from being a city dweller in a busy editorial career to living and working in a rural area as a mom to two young children.
Maggie talks about her book, The Kingdom of Prep: The Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew, and the story behind it and the life it took through her research and writing. She approached the project from a state of curiosity and it helped her to make sense of the struggle that IS book writing and publishing.
Maggie also talks about her journey in a busy (and stressful!) editorial role in fashion journalism in New York City to working from home with her two young children. Though feeling isolated, especially in the height of the pandemic, Maggie found a way to connect and create a passion project that allows her to feed her interests and share other women’s stories.
Tune in to hear more about Maggie’s journey in authorship and entrepreneurship, and get a little bit of a dish on the fashion industry.
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what we cover in this episode:
How she got to the point of writing a book after years at Vogue and Elle
How she dealt with the struggle of potentially being defined by one story in her professional life, and how she redefined it
How women’s stories of career success and reinvention are vital to understanding our own path
Maggie’s biggest challenge when writing about the same topic for three years
How to create a team and collaboration for yourself when you work alone
Why she went from living and working “in the city” to a happy resident of rural Massachusetts
Resources
The Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew by Maggie Bullock
Learn more about Maggie Bullock
Follow Maggie on Instagram
Connect with Maggie on LinkedIn
ABOUT maggie bullock
Maggie began her career as an editor at Vogue and was ELLE’s deputy editor from 2010 to 2018, overseeing fashion and beauty coverage and reporting on the intersection of style and culture. As a freelance journalist, she has written cover stories and features for the Economist, Vogue, ELLE, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Marie Claire, and New York magazine. She is co-creator of the Spread, a cult-beloved newsletter covering the best of women’s media. She lives with her husband and two sons in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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Stephanie Kruse (00:05):
Welcome to Good Enough for now, a podcast aimed at dismantling perfectionism. One conversation at a time. I'm Stephanie Kruse and along with my guests on the show, we share stories of false starts, unexpected U-turns, and moments of reinvention that happen as we move through life. Thanks for joining me. My hope is that our conversations will help you stay grounded, feel a little less alone, and a little bit more together.
(00:41):
Hi and welcome to another edition of the show. This week I'm talking with Maggie Bullock. Her first book has just been published on March 7th, and it's called The Kingdom of Prep, the Rise in Near Fall of J. Crew. Maggie's had a career in fashion journalism and she is uniquely adept at telling the tale of a brand that most of us know. Well, come on. We all know J. Crew, let's be clear. But many of us might love, dislike, or have had some differing relationships over time. Maggie does a great job of getting behind the scenes of over 40 years of history of J Crew. The conversation I had with Maggie was also really fun because she is, is down to earth as they come, even though her resume at some of the top fashion magazines would make you feel like you should be talking to her in a Chanel suit.
(01:29):
But what Maggie I really talk about is how to create a team for yourself. When you work alone, when you've moved away from your career, taken a different path, I think you're really gonna enjoy it. Maggie Bullock began her career as an editor at Vogue and was Elle's deputy editor from 2010 to 2018, overseeing fashion and beauty coverage and reporting on the intersection of style and culture as a freelance journalist. She's written cover stories and features for the Economist Vogue l, vanity Fair, the Atlantic, the New York Times style magazine. Marie Claire in New York Magazine, she's co-creator of the Spread, a cult beloved newsletter, covering the best of women's media on a weekly basis. She lives with her husband and two sons in Amherst, Massachusetts. Maggie Bullock, thank you so much for joining me today on Good Enough for Now.
Maggie Bullock (02:21):
Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation.
Stephanie Kruse (02:25):
Me too. You know, there's so many things that we can talk about, but the biggest thing I wanna make sure that we talk about is when this interview is out, your first book will have been published. Hmm. So the Kingdom of Prep, the Inside Story of the Rise and near Fall of J. Crew, a brand that I have way too many pieces of in my closet <laugh> and have had over the years, as I'm sure you have. Same. And so tell me about kinda what that has looked like for you and where I find you in your life right now as this work is about to be in the world.
Maggie Bullock (03:00):
Well, it's funny when you first reached out to me about this, you know, you said that you often talk about these moments of transition in people's lives, and I was like, well, ding, ding, ding, <laugh>. Cause that is right where I'm headed, or perhaps what I'm in the middle of. And I think where it's headed is a little uncertain as moments of transition tend to feel. But yes, I've been working on this book for three years. One year of deep reporting, one year of writing a revision, and then all the back and forth that happens to get it from a manuscript to like a Booky book book. Mm-hmm.
(03:34):
<affirmative>. And it has taken over my life. And so I'm just really curious to see what <laugh>, what life is like when it's out in the world and it just exists and it's just a physical thing with pages that people could flip or listen to. Apparently <laugh>, you know, I'm just like, what is that even gonna mean for me? I don't know if I'm answering your question because I'm genuinely in a state of like, huh, what now? It's not totally clear to me everything from three years, which was exactly when the pandemic started, is when I started writing this book. So it's a weird way in which I see it as this like cataclysmic world event and the way that it turned my life upside down, like really is connected in my psyche to writing this book and getting this book finally out. Does that mean that this chapter is over? I'm not sure. My son's camp counselor got Camp Covid this week, so I don't think I can assume that the publication of the Kingdom of Prep will put an end to a global disaster, sadly. But
Stephanie Kruse (04:39):
Oh, if only
Maggie Bullock (04:40):
<laugh> <laugh>, I was hoping for a quote unquote bookend, you know what I mean? Like let's get that thing outta there
Stephanie Kruse (04:48):
Anyway. Great. And isn't that just like life, right? Yeah. We never quite know where we're at when we're in it, even though we may be making progress. Yeah. Toward different goals or projects or work or life relationships, and you're able to look back on the process that got you here. Sure. So you don't know yet what's over that precipice, right? That you'll be able to say, oh, here's the thing. I can relate to that I think on so many levels. So how did you get to this thing? Tell me about kind of your career prior to that. You're a writer and you had worked in fashion and editorial. How did you come to decide, oh, I'm gonna write this book about this business and brand of J. Crew?
Maggie Bullock (05:34):
So I studied fashion design in college, and then I got a fashion journalism degree as a master's degree, which is a weird thing. I'm like one four who master degree fashion journal. I spent working in women's magazines, fashion magazines, first Vogue, but much, much longer. I worked at Editor Elle, went through like a major staff turnover, new editor-in-chief, and a whole new regime change. And at the same time I moved away outta New York City with my husband and my two kids, and I started freelancing. So one of my most fun, actually freelance assignments in that time was this story for Vanity Fair about J Crew, which at the time was floundering, right? I mean mm-hmm. <affirmative>, anybody who s shoved J crew remembers this very clearly because it felt like everything in the brand was on a fire sale, but yet you wanted nothing <laugh> <laugh>. And so in 2019, that story was published and it just was the tip of the iceberg. I learned in my reporting for Vanity Fair that there's like this much bigger story about American style, American fashion, like the highs and lows of the retail business. And also there's just more to J Crews own specific history that even as a longtime shopper of the brand, I had no idea. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I just kind of got hooked on this story and wanted to know more of it. And here we are.
Stephanie Kruse (07:08):
And I had read in the background around the book, which is like so anticipated, and you've gotten already some really good sound bites around this story, is that you had conducted over a hundred interviews Yeah. To get the information.
Maggie Bullock (07:26):
That's true.
Stephanie Kruse (07:27):
And this started before Covid, or I mean, what else were people doing, but wanted to talk to you <laugh> about J Crew.
Maggie Bullock (07:34):
You know, the Vanity Fair story was a great foundation, right? Yeah. So I didn't go in cold, but they were all people from recent History j. Crew, right. The company is 40 years old as of January. Nice of them to have a major anniversary time to my book.
Stephanie Kruse (07:49):
Oh,
Maggie Bullock (07:50):
<laugh>. Isn't that sweet?
Stephanie Kruse (07:51):
Nice.
Maggie Bullock (07:52):
So it's sort of neatly divided into two different regimes and mm-hmm. <affirmative> very different eras of the brand. But for Vanity Fair, I had really only talked about like the 2010s forward, this sort of gens, Mickey Drexler era. Yeah. That is what most people still remember of J Crew. I think it's safe to say, and what I had to do is like peel the onion backwards to get to the people who work there in like all the way back to 1981 before the company was even started. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so yeah, I spent a year doing that and you realize that it's a hundred people, most of them are xj crew people. There's also like historians and industry experts and bloggers and blah, blah, blah. But really a hundred, I could have done 300, I could have done a thousand because everybody works at a company for 2, 3, 10 years and they all know their own specific little niche of a company. If you wanna tell the story of the whole thing, you have to like bounce around all the different departments and all the different eras and then try to see like what of those stories hold together as a truth.
Stephanie Kruse (09:04):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think though perhaps you hadn't written a book yet because of all of the skills that you had gained in your career prior to that. You know, you probably had a lot of competency to figure this out, right? This is the longest form <laugh>, you know, an article you have ever attempted.
Maggie Bullock (09:22):
Truly.
Stephanie Kruse (09:23):
Were there moments when you were doing that that you thought, oh my gosh, have I gotten myself into something deeper than where I wanna be? Or were you so fascinated with the subject matter and what you were learning that that sort of didn't matter?
Maggie Bullock (09:40):
Well, candidly, there were definitely moments where I like burned out on this and I was like, oh my God, I'm not curing cancer. You know, like, do I <laugh>? Like it's a book about J Crew. There were moments where I internally struggled with like, how much do I want J Crew to really be my defining thing, you know? Sure.
Stephanie Kruse (10:00):
Do you have to wear a barn jacket for the rest of your life? Exactly.
Maggie Bullock (10:04):
As a reporter, I'm very much a generalist. I mean, it skews very female, like the stuff that I've written about, but I've written about a lot of Me Too things and the abortion movement, you know, like a lot of, yeah. Other things. And so there was like a little bit of an internal like who am I around, like really zeroing in on this one brand, and especially a brand that has very specific cultural associations, which I have very ambivalent feelings about those cultural associations. So like there was that kind of moment. But on the other hand, like in terms of speaking with those people or looking for them and listening to their stories, I never got bored. And in fact, the only problem I had was just time. Like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I wanted to have more time to do more research and hear more stories.
Stephanie Kruse (10:55):
That's really interesting. Some people talk about the flow state, right? Right. When you're working on something and the energy's just happening for you and your curiosity is leading you to the next topic or the next interviewer. And that's what it sort of sounds like to me, you know? Right. Even listening to you describe it and you know, you started to mention the cultural context of this brand, right? There is definitely that kind of aspiration and lifestyle that it presented mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? If you think about way back when, so when you were working on this book, how are you thinking about, you know, there's the real people and then there's a brand that almost has a life of its own. Right. How did that manifest for you in this story?
Maggie Bullock (11:42):
I think one thing that was so clear to me is that J Crew had, you know, over the course of those 40 years, it's been different things to different people and that is mm-hmm. <affirmative> even more true for the people who worked there. You know, the people who made this thing had a deep belief about what it stood for, what they were trying to achieve, what they were offering to the American shopper. And they don't like to be told that it's anything different, you know? So like in the eighties and nineties, the people making J Crew didn't think J Crew was preppy, for example, which is amazing to me. That
Stephanie Kruse (12:18):
Is fascinating.
Maggie Bullock (12:19):
<laugh>. I know. First I was like, but you're kidding, right? And then I realized that that was actually like a really interesting deep underlying layer of this story that A, is why it made preppy really appealing because yes, those clothes were preppy, but they found a way to make them and present them in a way that didn't feel loaded down with elitism. And then the clothes didn't feel cloying. They weren't cutesie preppy like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they weren't allowed to be cutesie preppy. But yeah, I did find that I was interestingly like navigating what this brand meant in the culture and what we all assumed it to mean and what associations it had outside of the realm of Jcrew versus like what they really believed that they were making inside of jcr.
Stephanie Kruse (13:06):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, retail in and of itself, there's always the news flash of, you know, retail's dying, retail's back it's fast, fashion has killed everything. And oh, where's quality? Do we care? And now it's sustainability. Oh now Vogue cares about this, so we should all care about this. And you know, you can get into all of the ways in which retail and fashion is such a manifestation of economic power as well as sort of a cultural referendum at the time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, my question about it for you is, I know it hasn't launched yet, but you know, is there like the next fashion brand you're getting? Like,
Maggie Bullock (13:49):
It's so funny, I mean probably not is the answer, but as I learned about JCrew I had to learn about all these other brands that were coming up or going down as j. Crew was rising, right? And so I'd learned the backstory of the gap of Banana Republic and Anne Taylor and all these major, major, major companies that have dressed America, right? I mean obviously they're mighty corporations, but they don't get the column inches that a French fashion house would get. Yes. So anyway, as businesses, there's a lot of really interesting stories out there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> to me, J Crew is the one for me to tell because J Crew out of all those brands, is the one that I felt any real animus or feeling for.
Stephanie Kruse (14:37):
Got it.
Maggie Bullock (14:38):
I've never been moved by any of those other brands. I just personally gravitate towards women's stories. So there are two women in the history of J Crew that I find endlessly fascinating. One her name is Jenna Lyons, and she is like the most unique story of fashion stardom. I mean like, I think in a way like her new-ish semi tabloidy persona overshadows the fact that she had an enormous effect on the way that women dress in a very real mm-hmm. <affirmative> way. Like she did some real work in fashion before she became what she is today. Yeah. Her impact is very large, it's very large. And really rewriting a lot of the rules of dress. That was something that I had fun with writing the book, which just the idea that like Jenna somehow showed you how to mix like polka dots and animal prints and neon accents and camo.
(15:37):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and this should have been a hot mess. And she made it look really good. And I think it's the way that a lot of people still dress, you know? Yeah. Like I don't think that went away actually. There used to be so many rules about dressing, we forget this. Oh, totally. No white after certain times of year and this didn't go with that. And I just feel like she blew up that rule book and that rule book ceased to exist, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And she did that more than anybody else, I think, because she did it on such a mass scale. So that's one of the fascinating women of j Crew. But then there's this whole other hidden character that no one knows about that I just am obsessed with <laugh>, which is this woman and her name is now Emily Scott. She was originally Emily Cinader and she was the daughter of the founder of J Crew, Arthur Cinader.
(16:24):
And she is the one who in the pre Jenna era, like set the guardrails for what J Crew was. And in many ways the people who worked there were designing around her, like the way she looked, the way she carried herself, the things she liked, the things she hated. And in writing about Emily, I did start to think a lot about what it meant for her to be running this burgeoning fashion brand in the late eighties and through the nineties. A time when no one was talking about girl bosses and nobody was really applauding, you didn't get a lot of column inches out of being a woman, running a company. Right. She was an anomaly, but that was largely not recognized. It's so fascinating to me to read profiles of her from the nineties because nobody bothers to note that she was one-of-a-kind in terms of running this company as a very young woman.
(17:21):
And I just think that she would be given a totally different kind of consideration if she was doing that today. I think also just on a personal note, I would add that my mother worked in textiles and ran a company the whole time that I was growing up. And so that was very much the example that was set for me. And I grew up going to her office and seeing people report to her and seeing her be a creative and a businesswoman. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think a lot of the themes in the book are ones that I was sort of programmed to respond to from a very early age.
Stephanie Kruse (17:58):
I love that you mentioned that, because I do think certainly there's not enough stories told still. You mentioned column inches, I think that's a great way to think about it about women in business, but it also has become a bit of a cultural, you know, the girl boss, right? Right. Phenomenon. Right. And Emily Cinader, you know, at the time is almost like the best hidden secret of a woman with a creative career running a business. And the fact that you had that experience with your own mom growing up probably has helped you <laugh> shape not only your interest in this story, but where you are now. So I wanna shift a little and start to talk about the things that we're attracted to. Obviously there's context within your own life and you had a kick ass and still do <laugh>, a kick ass career and fashion journalism and working at publications, you know, like Elle and Vogue and you've done work for the New York Times and obviously Vanity Fair and you've started other ventures outside of this book and you're now in Amherst, Massachusetts. You're not living in New York City doing the thing. So is this your creative in business life <laugh> coming together?
Maggie Bullock (19:11):
<laugh> so funny. Yes. I mean it obviously is, it's where I'm at now. I am curious to see where writing this book leaves me and what it leads to next. But yes, I moved here with my husband and two young boys, well actually one of my sons was six weeks old when we moved here.
Stephanie Kruse (19:33):
Oh
Maggie Bullock (19:33):
Wow. In December. Don't do that. That's a terrible idea. <laugh>, nobody should move to small town New England where you don't really know anybody with a six week old and a three year old and no real career lined up. That's a bad idea.
Stephanie Kruse (19:49):
Thank you for the PSA <laugh>.
Maggie Bullock (19:52):
If you're listening and that was your exact plan, call me and we can workshop it. Um, that was a difficult thing to do and I had to really restart. I mean there was like a lot of reasons why we wanted to do it. One was that I had worked fairly intensely my entire career without taking a break, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like I had just got that job right outta grad school and kept on chugging and never looked up and I was ready for a life change, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I was ready to try something different. Also, I was a mom now of two kids and I wanted to be very present for my kids at the same time. I didn't want to give up my ambition and I was, yeah. So interested in all these things that were media, fashion, style, culture, what have you, that all really radiate from a city. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I guess I really do feel like a deep sense of relief that the book is coming out. Because to me that really marks like, okay, that was five years ago. The book has taken and the, the book slash pandemic have consumed three years of that. So like if you're marking time, yeah. If I'm marking time, I do feel a sense of like, okay, we did it. We redefined our career, we mm-hmm <affirmative>, we <laugh> me, myself, and I, Hey
Stephanie Kruse (21:12):
You all the people that exist in your mind, <laugh>
Maggie Bullock (21:16):
Colleagues. Oh right. You don't have any,
Stephanie Kruse (21:20):
That is the worst part, right? You don't have an office where you could, I've been a consultant on my own for years too. And that is the worst part is you don't have someone to be like, you wanna go lunch? Wait. Oh,
Maggie Bullock (21:31):
I know. It's, it's early on. I was sitting in this little office in the upstairs of my house, which is not even in the burbs, like it's pretty rural where we live. My office chair just brokeike out from under me one day. Like I was just like, what is this me? And I took a picture and I put it on Instagram and in that moment I was like, I understand what they say about the digital connection when you don't have real people around you. Because I was like, this hilariously stupid thing happened to me and I'm the only person here. So I guess I'm share with you, you out there,
Stephanie Kruse (22:07):
If a chair breaks alone in your office, did it happen if no one's there to laugh like
Maggie Bullock (22:12):
<laugh>, it actually landed on the floor. It was hilarious. And if it had happened in my office, I would've had cocktail party potter for years. But
Stephanie Kruse (22:21):
Yes,
Maggie Bullock (22:22):
I am personally the tree of the, so the book is reassuring to me, right? Because it's gonna exist like outside of this little pod. But I'll say, if you don't mind me talking about it, that like I found a cure to not having colleagues,
Stephanie Kruse (22:37):
Ooh, do share <laugh>
Maggie Bullock (22:39):
And the cure is you started a business with them, with your old friends, your old colleagues. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, when I was at Elle, uh, this woman Rachel Baker and I were like instant work-wise. Now I've always had a work wife, I will say like I'm the kind of person who bonds fast with whomever I'm working with. But like Rachel and I were so super simpatico and her desk was right outside of my office and I literally just could stage whisper every thought I had all day long to her. So I mean, we didn't even use Slack because I was just like <laugh>. I would tell her everything. And when I got to this office in this house, in this room, I was like, oh God, all of my thoughts, it's just me. I can't, I'm a person who likes to laugh a lot as you may be able to tell.
(23:26):
And I was just like, wow, I'm just here. So in, in 2020, Rachel and I started this newsletter, it's called The Spread and it's a reading list with a lot of our own musings of the best of women's media, right? Like the best from women's magazines but also general interest publications. And we put it together every week. And so for one day a week, I mean Rachel and I are in touch a worrying amount, but there is one day a week that we dedicate to putting this thing together and we have colleagues and we have teamwork. And it is like, I laugh so much more that day than any other days of my week. And I feel like connected. Basically I had to make a thing when I said I found a cure, like we had to make a thing. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, that was our thing. That was just a thing we wanted to be making. It's not a big money maker. It gives us so much satisfaction and we love making it, but we love working together and it's a cure for loneliness to make something with a friend. And you don't have to, I mean she lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and that in this day and age that feels like nothing. Right? Because
Stephanie Kruse (24:41):
Yeah, because everyone's somewhere else. Yeah. I mean I'm a few hundred miles down the road from you, but we're, you know, on a screen right now. But yeah, so I love that because I do think that that is something that as women, we have our groups of friends let's say and we can socialize with. But I think in the work context and professionally we need teams too. And that connection, whether it's to be able to laugh, you know, which that's the best emotion ever. So <laugh>, I'm so happy to see that bring itself back to you through this experience. It is this lonely road because we're all just working with our minds and we can work anywhere. We don't have to physically be present. That doesn't mean we can't create these connections for ourselves. So whether it's you doing the spread or people listening, having your board of advisors or your coffee that you have every week with people or your workout group or you know, whatever that is, you have a lot of power and agency to create
Maggie Bullock (25:37):
That. Yeah. I like the point you made about it being scheduled because I think for me, I've never been good about keeping a workout buddy. Life just always gets in the way for me. But this mm-hmm. <affirmative> is a thing that we put out into the world. It has a pub date every week. Like we can't not do it. And actually that's the greatest thing for me ever because if I had an option I'd probably opt out. Right? I'm always overburdened so I have no option. And that's the greatest thing for me. That's just how I work. I know there's a lot of people out there with actual self-discipline.
Stephanie Kruse (26:14):
I mean I wanna meet more of them <laugh>
(26:17):
Cause maybe they'll run up on me as well, but it's accountability. Right, right. So, you know, yes, I would love to think that we could all just be accountable to ourselves and that would be enough, but as human organisms, <laugh> Yeah. Connection Yeah. Matters and fuels us. So I think it's interesting cuz one of the things that popped in my head as you were talking about that too was writing a book takes a lot of accountability. So was like the date that it was due to your editor enough for you? Or did you have to like trick yourself into these deadlines? Cause that's such a longer term project than a Tuesday publication, right? Oh
Maggie Bullock (26:55):
Lord. It really is. I will say as an undertaking, it was so much more enormous than I could have imagined just keeping all those stories straight. There was just a lot of information. And so I'm looking forward to the book being outta the world just because I wanna experiment what it's like to not have that pressure lying on me. Because until that thing is on a shelf, I think I'm still gonna feel the sense that like I have to hold personally all of these balls in the air, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and the balls are everybody's stories that I'm trying to tell with accuracy and faithfulness. I'll say book publishing is a real doozy. And so there was a sense that the initial publication date was supposed to be more than a year ago.
Stephanie Kruse (27:44):
Oh wow.
Maggie Bullock (27:45):
Yeah. So I was in a state of sheer panic for the first like year and a half just trying to meet those deadlines. They were really intense. And then regardless of the fact that I did meet them, the publication date kept getting shifted back. Which again has a lot to do with a global pandemic. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Then somehow it had to do with election cycles. I mean the sort of big picture things that were affecting the publication of a book about J Crew, I was like really? There's a relationship between J Crew and the election cycle. But it just meant that I didn't have the choice. I really, really worked hard that first year and a half because I actually thought I had to like finish it.
Stephanie Kruse (28:27):
You had to get it done. Yeah. And we'll have another conversation about publishing books at some point because I do think it's something that most people don't, you know, if you're not a writer or you haven't gotten into this world at all, you have no concept of the amount of lifetime <laugh> that actually conceiving getting an agent, getting it, you know, writing the thing. Yeah. Getting all of the work. It's years of people's lives. And I think, you know, in your story arc, if I might hear you have this three year period where you not only shifted what you were doing professionally, your identity, right? You have two kids, you're now living in the suburbs and not living in the city, working alone, not with the team. I mean so many things for you shifted over that timeframe and what a nice, I mean like you used the word bookend, I wanna find another word, but I think it's right, there's this delineation that's happening for you right now to figure out what comes next. Right. And all this work you've done, you're ready. Yeah. That's amazing. Like you couldn't write this story the way you've actually lived it, <laugh>, which is fantastic.
Maggie Bullock (29:36):
I mean it's really validating. It is. It's also just a relief because it a long hard slog and I learned so much in the process.
Stephanie Kruse (29:46):
Yeah.
Maggie Bullock (29:46):
So it makes me think that I would write another book just because I had to learn how to write a book. Now I know how to write a book. So like am I really gonna not use that hard earned experience to try something new?
Stephanie Kruse (29:59):
I think you've just created another runway for yourself to where you're not sure yet <laugh>. But I think that's the thing about accomplishments is you know, because we might look at them and say, oh here's what I do first. The next, it's this next rung maybe in my career or I get married or I partner up and I decide to be a parent or I move or have a bigger home or whatever those goals are. That's never the thing, right? There's always something else beyond that that if you are open to it, you'll find out.
Maggie Bullock (30:32):
Yeah.
Stephanie Kruse (30:32):
I think this is exactly that for you and I'm so excited it comes in this wrapped package of a book that everyone will enjoy this
Maggie Bullock (30:40):
Bright pink package
Stephanie Kruse (30:42):
<laugh>. Exactly. I will put all of the information in show notes so that people can link up to the spread because that's how I found out about you <laugh> because I started reading it and it does for me like what all those fashion magazines did and your commentary's hilarious. So I highly encourage people listening to check it out.
Maggie Bullock (31:00):
Thank you.
Stephanie Kruse (31:01):
So Maggie, where can people find you to learn more about the book, order? The book?
Maggie Bullock (31:06):
Sure. So I have a website. It's pretty low-fi but it has the basics and it's maggie bullock.com and I'm on Instagram as at Maggie Bullock. I was able to get some pretty straightforward uh, <laugh>. That's good. Weddings. And then there's this spread which you'll share with people, but that's www dot the spread. Do media.
Stephanie Kruse (31:27):
Awesome.
Maggie Bullock (31:28):
And I would love to connect with people. One interesting thing is that now that the book is coming out, more people know about it. I'm starting to hear more new about J Crew. People are like, oh you need to hear this story. So anybody out there <laugh>, I'm still listening. I'll always have an ear for great j. Crew stories. Bring them my way.
Stephanie Kruse (31:49):
<laugh>. Yeah. Would you write the script for the mini-series <laugh>?
Maggie Bullock (31:52):
Correct. I'll need each and every one. <laugh>.
Stephanie Kruse (31:57):
Maggie, I have loved this time with you. Thank you so, so much for joining me on. Good Enough for now and I cannot wait to read the book. Best of luck to you.
Maggie Bullock (32:05):
Thank you.
Stephanie Kruse (32:11):
Thank you so much for joining me. Please share the show with your friends by word of mouth. Send them a text and baby leave a rating and review. It really helps people find good enough. For now, don't forget to also follow on your favorite podcast player like Apple or Spotify so you can get new shows automatically each time they're released. You'll find show notes at good enough for now, pod.com and you can connect on Instagram at good enough for now Pod. See you next time.
