Girls Write Now Advocate Jodi Kantor Releases Book for Young People Navigating the Job Market
Jodi Kantor, a Longtime Advocate of Girls Write Now, Has Released Her Book, How To Start: Discovering Your Life’s Work, To Help Young People Navigate a Confusing Career Environment.
With warmth, honesty, and inspired wisdom, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jodi Kantor expands on her triumphant Columbia University commencement address, tackling the question, “How, in this environment, is anyone supposed to find and start their life’s work?” In How To Start, Kantor casts aside platitudes and false hope to offer tangible help. Work is how we spend much of our time. It’s our engine of progress: how cancer therapies are invented, political campaigns won, thrilling art created and matched with an audience.
Instead of letting cynicism take over, Kantor identifies two principles to help young people discover their life’s work: craft and need. By pairing the two, they can navigate tough, sensitive choices: how to think about money. How much risk to take on. When to buck what others are saying.
Powerful and provocative, How to Start is a statement of faith for young people as they make their way through uncertain times, offering wisdom, strategy, and a set of aspirations to launch their careers and last their whole lives.
In 2020, Jodi spoke to the Girls Write Now Class of 2020 graduates during our first-ever virtual gala. Watch her speech here. Now, Jodi will be donating 125 copies of How To Start to our community, including mentees/mentors and attendees at the 2026 Girls Write Now Awards.
Additionally, on June 16, 2026, the Girls Write Now Community is invited to a virtual book club event in which host Debbie Millman and author Jodi Kantor will discuss How To Start. Get more details here.
Jodi is also offering the first chapter of the book for free! Download excerpt here.