Rachel Meade Smith

Happy birthday to the man known for looking around on an average day and saying, apropos of nothing, “This is the best”; who ran the NYC marathon without training; who will give his phone number to literally anyone; and who wouldn’t let me paint over caulk marks in our apartment for 6 years because he thought one looked like a gummy bear and the other a Kara Walker painting. Thank you for all your mindless doodles and endless singing, may everyone feel in their lifetime an infinitesimal fraction of the love you show us everyday

SEARCH WORK is now shipping! Glimpse into the intimate, existential, and occasionally triumphal experience that is looking for work. Available at the link in our bio.

Tell us who's hiring, Kim...or order SEARCH WORK to understand the uncanny landscape of looking for work

What are we really doing when we’re searching for work? Writer, editor, researcher, and civic design worker Rachel Meade Smith (@stormcloudsmith ) has often returned to this question over the past decade of running her newsletter, Words of Mouth, which shares opportunities across design, the arts, education, media, and the built environment. To mark its 10-year anniversary, Smith’s upcoming anthology, “Search Work: A Collective Inquiry into the Job Hunt” (@or_books ), out May 6, finds the common threads—and rays of light to be found within—what can often be a lonely, quietly agonizing experience. In our latest “Media Diet,” Smith speaks with our contributing editor @emilyzingiber about the art of job-posting curation and how looking for and finding work shapes our lives.  (Title slide portrait: Georgia Hilmer @georgiahilmer ; Slide 3: Courtesy OR Books; Slide 5: Courtesy Words of Mouth; Slide 7: Courtesy Cornell University Press)

Come celebrate the launch of Search Work: A Collective Inquiry into the Job Hunt. Edited by Rachel Meade-Smith. Get the book and RSVP at the link in our bio

Search Work brings together over 30 contributors, drawing a diverse yet intimate portrait of what it is to search for work––these five excerpts offer a glimpse into the collection. Pre-order your copy for 15% off at the link in bio.

Rachel Meade Smith for Wool Skirts TITLE: Namesake SKIRT NO: 10.126 MATERIALS: Wool skirt, yarn METHODS: Hand-stitching, darning “This skirt is mended with an island. The wooly mass claims the skirt’s taxonomic unit, 10.126, as its own, and casts the rest as water.” @stormcloudsmith ABOUT THE ARTIST Rachel Meade Smith is a writer, editor, artist, and educator. She treats repair as both mantra and material practice. Photographer: @andres__altamirano

Search Work, edited by Words of Mouth's Rachel Meade Smith, brings together 50+ contributors to examine the job hunt through essays, archival job ads, labor research, and more—revealing how the work search almost always morphs into something deeper. You can pre-order your copy at 15% off by following the link in our bio!

One day last January I acted very rashly. The 10-year anniversary of @words.ofmouth was a year away, which was maybe, in a delusional person’s imagination, enough time to put together a book to celebrate it. I immediately started telling people about this idea, which I believed is how you make something come true. Miraculously, today Search Work is available for pre-order. This happened because of community, specifically the Words of Mouth community, which is so brimming with brilliant, kind, eager people, that really how could I have failed? I got together four incredible contributing editors (@rrrrkkkknnnn , @dorothy_jeanne , @dj_wintry_mix , and @rayelz ), one genius book designer (@goldella ), a very up-for-it independent publisher (@or_books ), and over 50 contributors (chosen from 1,100 pitches!!!) who spent months doing the often painful work of putting their critical reflections on job hunting down on the page. Every one of these collaborators believed what I’ve learned over the last 10 years—that the job hunt is a worthy, under-investigated site of inquiry that has SO much to teach us about our world and how it’s changing. Today, you can order Search Work at 15% off; it will ship in February—just weeks after the newsletter’s 10-year anniversary. Link is obviously in bio.

[Update: Wow! Had over 450 RSVPs in less than 24hrs so I’ve closed the form for now — the bar is not that big!! I’ll find a bigger venue for next year 🫶🏼] On December 20th, I’ll be hosting WoM’s first annual NO-COMPANY HOLIDAY PARTY! A festive gathering for the un- and under-employed. RSVP at link in bio ~pleeease~. When: Sat, Dec. 20th, 5-8pm   Where: Lowlands Bar (@lowlandsbar ), 543 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY There will be:  * Cake! * Holiday bonuses for a lucky few!  * Real humans to meet and chat with! * No awkward co-workers! Let’s cheers to a new year where we all get paid for our labor. Festive dress is encouraged. Email [email protected] with questions.  Accessibility: The bar has one step at the entrance. The bathroom is wheelchair accessible.  *If you have a job: Yes, you can still come, but no bragging.

New York has changed a lot in 15 years but the photo booth at the Ace Hotel is still there; happy solstice-iversary to us 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Help me make a book about looking for work. We all do it! Call for Pitches open through March 1st. Link in bio 🐒