Julie Powell and the World of Blogging
The late writer did more than change food writing.
I was one of the many people stunned this week to hear of writer Julie Powell’s unexpected death. She is described in her numerous obituaries as having changed food writing, and that is an important legacy. But for me her significance is that she represents a particular time in blogging history.
Powell began writing a blog called The Julie/Julia Project in 2002. The blog described her efforts to cook her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia Child was a giant in cooking and food writing. Julie Powell was not. That was the hook for the blog. How would this day’s dish turn out? What would Powell have to say about it?
I also began writing a blog in 2002, this one called Original Content. The blog described my process, or lack thereof, while writing children’s books and my take on the publishing world of which I was a minor member. That was the hook for the blog. Just how long was Gail going to work on this next draft, anyway? Oh, look! She went to a literary festival and had her picture taken with an illustrator!
A lot of people were starting blogs in 2002 and the years that followed, probably because so many people thought they could. And they were right. If you could figure out how to use Blogger or Wordpress, you could…
