more photos on flickr >>

 

The seventh installment of the “Interview Zan” series comes to us from [F]oxymoron. (If you remember, [F]oxymoron is the cupcake-man.)

1. If you had the opportunity to read the thoughts of one man (think What Women Want), who would you choose, and why?

I wouldn’t want to read the thoughts of someone I was romantically involved with. Although it would be nice to know if they were lying about something, I wouldn’t want to know what my partner was thinking all the time. In the absence of that choice, if I had to choose someone (this isn’t a skill I’ve ever wanted to have), I guess I would choose someone really evil who was planning to commit a terrorist act by killing a lot of people. I’d intercept his evil plans and save a lot of lives.

2. You are very involved with the BlogHer community. What advice would you offer to a woman interested in writing quality content for BlogHer, or any other established online community?

First and foremost, if you want to write quality content for an established site, you have to want to write whether you’re getting paid to do it or not. I’d been blogging on my personal site for over four years before I started writing for BlogHer. How did that come about? I’d been reading and commenting regularly on the site, and in late 2006 I read a post that was related to single women.

One of BlogHer’s co-founders, Lisa Stone, left a comment on that post eluding to the fact that she was looking for a Singles editor. I wrote her an email and told her I was interested; she decided to give me a chance…two years later, I’ve gone from four posts a month to eight and I also write about fitness. It’s a great thing.

3. One day you run into Oprah while devouring a chocolate cupcake with peppermint icing at Hello Cupcake. She says, “Hey Zandria, I want you to come on my show next week and discuss a few of the things you blog about.” What would you discuss?

I don’t watch Oprah very often, but I know she’s an inspiration to a lot of women. As for me, the posts I’ve written that are most important to me are the ones that I feel have inspired other people. Things that I find inspiring tend to be my favorite posts when they’re written by other people, too.

If Oprah invited me to be on her show, I’d want to be involved with choosing and interviewing everyday women who decided to stop being afraid of potential consequences and went outside of their comfort zone to accomplish something they really wanted to do. It doesn’t have to be something huge, like building schools in Africa or founding a nonprofit organization. I’m talking about people who quit a well-paying to do something they really love, or maybe they hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. I believe that seeing other people accomplish these things inspires other women to do the same with their own dreams.

4. After a string of five wonderful dates, out of six, you conclude that you’ve encountered a rare species of DC man — a keeper. What did you do for the first date? The second? And what was the “not so good” date?

Since I haven’t identified a “keeper” yet, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer this question with dates I’ve already been on, or ones that I’d like to go on. I’d say, in general, the dates I like the best are the ones where I’m able to get to know the person. This means no movie theaters and no loud concerts (which would be considered a “not so good” date, at least while we’re getting to know each other). I like sitting somewhere (not too noisy and crowded) to have a few drinks; I also like walking around outside on a nice day.

I also wouldn’t mind doing something active, like hiking, but I’d save that for at least the second date. There’s been a few times where I consented to spending a few hours with someone I’d never met before, and it turned out to be way too long (an excursion to a museum comes to mind).

5. Imagine this…your online reading is restricted only to posts including one “tag” (keyword) of your choice. What tag would you choose, and why?

I actually have Google Alerts set up to send me an email every day on two specific tags. The tags I chose are “single women” and “fitness,” which happen to be my two BlogHer writing areas. It’s a good way for me to stay informed about what’s going on, and sometimes the posts I write are based on a topic I’ve read about through one of these alerts.

If I had to choose one of them, I’d go with “single women.” That tag pulls up information about single women all over the world. Every day something interesting pops up that I click on and read about…it’s pretty cool.