I sometimes joke that I’m a recovering journalist. I spent the last few years working at The New York Times and The Washington Post. But between (all of) you and me, I’m not sure how deeply I identified as a journalist — more a curious human with roving interests who lucked into some cool jobs in the field. 

Fortunately, I’ve had gigs that have given me tons of room to roam. At “The Ezra Klein Show,” some of my favorite episodes I produced were about the hidden costs of cheap meat, why government services often suck and what to do about it, the crisis facing men and boys, and radical experiments in communal living. At The Washington Post, I served on the paper’s editorial board where I produced a multimedia series on public safety and inaugurated a longform opinion fellowship.

These days, I’m delighted to be a 2024 Moynihan Public Scholar at The City College of New York where I’m working on an essay collection about attention. I also spend a lot of time making music! I teach music to little ones (under 3) one day a week, host a monthly “Living Room” series at my neighborhood coffee shop/bookstore, and recently discovered that my neighbors can almost certainly hear me playing piano through the walls.

Feel free to say hello at emefa (dot) agawu (at) gmail (dot) com. I’m prioritizing offline life in a way that makes it hard to be as digitally connected as I might like to be, but I love to hear from new pals. So, try me! I’d be especially excited to hear: 

• If something on my bookshelf sparks anything for you;

• If you live in Baltimore and want to play jazz, collaborate on a one-off musical project, or co-design a salon-type evening;

• If you were running a college and you had to design a single course that everyone had to take, what might it look like? 

Thanks for stopping by,

Emefa 

P.S. I try to be as available as I can for mentorship-type convos, but be warned: I myself have been extraordinarily lucky and extremely unstrategic in my own career, so I’m most likely to tell you to 1) think/read a ton about whatever genuinely excites you, 2) build the kind of peer advisory network where you’re regularly getting good feedback and learning to giving good feedback, and 3) also to try to figure out what makes you (dis)trust advice from others. (I.e. asking: “What is this person’s model of the world/what are their values and where does it differ from mine?”) 

*(Emphasis on the first syllable, like: “EH - meh - fah.”)