Avidly's Origins
About Avidly
Avidly specializes in short form criticism about how culture feels. Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle founded Avidly in 2012, partly out of their sense that academics had too few venues for energetic writing, and partly out of their desire for more Adam Lambert/Twilight content. Avidly became a channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2014. In 2016, the Avidly Reads book series was launched with NYU Press. For reasons we apparently cannot remedy, there are wineglasses behind this bioblurb.
Sarah Mesle
Co-Founder and EditorSarah Mesle is Assistant Professor (Teaching) of Writing at the University of Southern California and Editor-at-Large at the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her dog is a shepherd mix named Luna.
Sarah Blackwood
Co-Founder and Editor EmeritaSarah Blackwood is Associate Professor of English at Pace University and the author of The Portrait's Subject (2019, University of North Carolina Press). Her dog is a shepherd mix named Belle.
Emma Johnson
Editorial AssistantEmma Johnson attends Kenyon College, where she reads for the Kenyon Review.