We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maddy Sutka and Lola Estok Maddy Sutka and Lola Estok. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maddy Sutka and Lola Estok below.

Alright, Maddy Sutka and Lola Estok thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

A lot of the foundation for our writing comes from the skills we learned in college, where we both majored in entertainment writing. Obviously writing for a magazine is different than writing a script, but many of the same principles exist. For each article that Blossom publishes, we try to find the narrative within the story, and the heart of the piece.

Since Blossom is a passion project for us, we’ve had to figure out a lot of skills as we go. Things like creating pitch decks, building a website, and learning how to market ourselves. We had to come to terms with the idea that we don’t need to have everything figured out right away, and it’s been really rewarding to realize that we can reach out to other people and learn through them. Our editing team has experience in so many different creative disciplines, and we’re able to come together and combine our expertise to expand Blossom’s capabilities.

In many ways, we’re still learning, but one of the best things about Blossom is that it’s a community of creatives just trying to figure it out. Hopefully, we never stop learning and growing through Blossom and our art.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Blossom is an online magazine for those of us who are still figuring it out. We wanted to create a publication for young adults, by young adults, specifically trying to uplift marginalized voices.

Blossom was born during the height of the pandemic when we were both trying to be adults while living in our childhood bedrooms. We were talking about the magazines we loved as teens, and how they served as kind of a roadmap towards adulthood, and how we wished that there was a similar guide for aimless 20-somethings. Once we started to make Blossom a reality, we realized how much this idea spoke to other people we knew, and it quickly grew into a community of writers and artists who were all dealing with the same uncertainties.

Blossom has been there for us through ups and downs while we navigate all the avenues that adulthood can take us. Writing for Blossom is like a therapy session, except we’re publishing it for the whole world to read and relate to.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being able to uplift the voices of our peers has been really rewarding. Blossom aims to be a safe space for marginalized genders, queer people, and people of color to share their stories and develop their creative portfolios.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

There are so many incredible works of art that have inspired Blossom, but the core of the publication was inspired by Rookie Mag, an online magazine that was founded by Tavi Gevinson in the early 2010s. The magazine talked about life, sex, art, and culture in a way that was both relatable to young readers and also exposed us to new ideas and ways of thinking about life. We both were avid readers of Rookie growing up, and it really shaped who we are today as people and creatives. In many ways, we hope that Blossom can be a similar version of that for young adults.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.blossommag.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblossommag/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBlossomMag/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blossom-mag
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/theblossommag
• Other: https://letterboxd.com/theblossommag/lists/ https://www.tiktok.com/@theblossommag https://open.spotify.com/user/7iabwscp706wntz1ecpazn2zo?si=38941e2b19504ca9

Image Credits
Lyvie Scott: “At some point, he paused our make-out session to tell me that he liked my small mouth” “an angel steeped in Iove and light: a cycle of destiny, to be Magdalene, to be Ophelia”. “[a character] doesn’t necessarily have to change. They just have to be presented with the opportunity to change” Adriene Vento: “I like your leggings!” “Thanks!” Maddy Sutka: “I hate that she’s there. I love that she’s still a part of me.”