Well, well, well.... welcome!

New year, new... life?!

Well hello there… That’s how I’ve started my editor’s letters for the past six years, so it’s a fitting beginning to something I hope will keep my creative juices flowing, and keep me connected to an audience I truly love.

Welcome to my brand new newsletter! This is all very exciting; it reminds me of my first blog that I set up back in 2007 when such a thing was all the rage. That had the ridiculous moniker Notorious VIC, so at least I’ve matured ever so slightly.

If you’re reading this, chances are you already know me, but just in case please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Vicki Notaro, and I add a Carlyle on the end when I’m feeling fancy or in a particularly “married” humour. I have been a journalist and editor based in Ireland for 15 years, predominantly working on magazines.

I started my career writing for KISS, Ireland’s only teen mag. I got my start by sending annoying emails, something that would continue throughout my career. While I am unfortunately the exact opposite of a Nepo baby (a common adult?), I progressed fairly quickly to editing newspaper supplements five years later. At the end of 2016, I returned to my old KISS stomping ground to become editor-in-chief of STELLAR, and it has been a wild ride involving a foray in to management, event organisation, podcasting and presenting.

But over the past year, I’ve been feeling a tug. My work is very important to me, and I have always considered what I do for a living to be a “dream job” - and for a very long time, it absolutely has been. However, when you start to get a niggle in the back of your mind that perhaps it’s time to try something else, it’s very difficult to make it go away.

It had been quietly yet persistently clamouring away in my brain for months when that little noise suddenly became a cacophony, and I had an epiphany last summer - it was time to move on, to try something different.

Change is undeniably frightening. I spent weeks trying to talk myself out of it. Who walks away from a dream job? Who leaves any job in a cost of living crisis, or without another job to go to? What would I even do with my life if I wasn’t editing STELLAR? Who was I without my title? Would leaving be walking away from a career built steadily over time? Who am I?! Are those my feet?!!

Then I came to realise that I wasn’t alone in any of this. Fellow former magazine editors Jo Elvin and Farrah Storr (also Substack stalwarts) gave me so much comfort with their writing on the subject of walking away from the glamour and grit of the job. I understood that they get it, the high highs and low lows of an industry struggling even for space on the shelves these days.

Then talking to friends, acquaintances and interview subjects all inspired me. No matter what your profession, we all get to a point where we just feel a bit off. Some people can make a slight tweak and feel all the better for it, but I came to see that this needed to be a biggie, that stagnating out of fear just wasn’t an option.

Then a kind of zen settled upon me. I realised that I had already made the decision, subconsciously, then consciously, and that I just had to action it. A confluence of events, opportunities and a lovely experience of therapy all culminated in an awareness that in order to keep moving forward, I had to make a change. That it’s rare to get to do such things on one’s own terms, and that fortune does indeed favour the brave.

So I bit the bullet. I told everyone, shocked a few but remained steadfast in feeling like this was the absolute right decision. I’ve replaced myself as editor, deconstructed my office, lit a match under a couple of long-desired projects and I haven’t felt sadness or regret at any point - just pride and excitement. And I think that’s how you know when you’re doing the right thing. I’m a big believer in going with your gut, and it’s never steered me far wrong.

Of course, there are moments when I feel a bit scared. Worried that nobody will care about anything I do anymore, frightened about making money, nervous about putting myself out there as me, not as a magazine editor. But I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

This newsletter will be one of the ways I continue to do something I love, and that’s sharing bits of writing. Sure, isn’t that why I got in to this business in the first place?

It will also eventually become a partner to a podcast of the same name, in which I plan on deep diving all of the mad bits of knowledge I have accumulated over fifteen years working in glossy magazine land. Do you know how Elvis Presley is connected to Kim Kardashian? Do you care? If so, Vickipedia will be for you.

I love celebrities, I love glam, I love pop culture, television and film. So if you subscribe, you’ll get a bit of all of that as well as personal pieces on life, love, friendship, family and careers. I also love buzzing off other people, so I’m hopeful to have an array of fabulous podcast guests that will join me down the rabbit hole.

Thank you for reading, whether you’re brand new or a STELLAR fan. I hope you enjoy Vickipedia as much as I know I’m going to enjoy creating it.

Here’s to 2023!

Vx