We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Diana Daniele. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Diana below.

Diana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

My senior year at UCLA I chanced to take an upper-division communications class taught by Dr. Diana Meehan. I hadn’t expected to be so invigorated by the content of the course or so enthralled with my professor. But, as the weeks passed, my knowledge of the powerful symbols, rituals, and rhetoric of political communication grew, as did my esteem, admiration, and respect for Dr. Diana Meehan. In my mind, she had already become my mentor, as she was the woman I most wanted to be like. I went to see Dr. Meehan during her office hours, and, while I felt tongue-tied, I managed to tell her I was graduating in the Spring, and was headed to USC in the fall to get my master’s in Journalism at USC. She was both encouraging and approving, and wished me well, but that seemed to be the end of my mentorship dream.

Until fate stepped in.

While in my first semester of graduate school, I found myself having lunch at the invitation of Dr. Diana Meehan herself, at the swanky faculty lounge on the USC campus. It seems Dr. Meehan, who had asked me to call her Diana, was joining the academic ranks at USC, and was to be named the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Women and Men (ISWM), a feminist think tank studying how women’s roles are portrayed in the mass media, and on the big and small screen. It seems Diana had heard about a TV News piece I’d worked on in J-school about the toy market at the holidays, most specifically about the Barbie doll. Diana proposed an idea: would I like to do a gender role research study on Barbie, and other personality dolls like her, to be conducted at her Institute? I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

While completing my research study at the Institute, I began writing the ISWM newsletter “Notes from Kerckhoff Hall,” and when I graduated from USC, Diana offered me an expanded role as the public relations person for the Institute. My Mentor had become My Boss.

When I eventually spread my wings and left the Institute to work as a publicist at an entertainment PR firm in town, Diana and I still stayed in touch. In fact, it was she who recommended me to be interviewed by Maria Shriver for a piece on feminism today for The Today Show. (And in meeting Maria Shriver, I found another Shero!) A fierce advocate for single sex education, Diana would go on to found The Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles.

Best Mentor. Best Boss. EVER.

Diana, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As I explained, I was still a student at USC’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism when I began writing the newsletter for the university’s Institute for the Study of Women and Men (ISWM) at Kerckhoff Hall. Upon graduation, I began working full-time at ISWM, working with the press and planning our salon series at Paramount Pictures. I also liaisoned with our sponsors such as DreamWorks, Castle Rock Entertainment and NBC/Universal. In the 20 years since then I have worked with iconic brands such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Ralph Lauren, AMC Theaters, Bernard of Hollywood, The Palm restaurants, Rock the Vote, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatrics AIDS Foundation, and the Beverly Hills Hotel. Currently, I work as a writer and advocate for invisible illness and mental health–while still keeping my day job as a publicist. I am currently seeking literary representation for my memoir DAMN, GIRL: A MIRACULOUS MEMOIR OF MOTHERHOOD, MIGRAINE AND MADNESS.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Part of my mission in writing this memoir is to educate readers about Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS, which is what healed my treatment-resistant depression– and in a truly miraculous manner. As a suicide survivor, TMS absolutely saved my life.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I find being a creative, specifically a writer, exceedingly rewarding. I have published numerous essays, in NEWSWEEK, ZIBBY MAGAZINE and INSIDER, among others, about invisible illness, mental health, female friendship, and family dynamics. I am honored to share from my experience, and my hope is that my pieces make others feel seen and understood. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is this: we are all in this together. And, as Bruce Springsteen said in his recent, sold-out concerts here in Los Angeles, and as Maria Shriver says each week in her global SUNDAY PAPER: We must RISE UP. TOGETHER.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dianadanielepr.com
• Instagram: @dianadanielepr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-daniele-6666748/
• Twitter: @DianaFDaniele
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Diana-Daniele

Image Credits

KABC-TV, NBC-TV