Josie Rhodes Cook doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t writing, whether it was a story about her Sim characters or a rant on social media about her favorite TV show. When she’s not working as a digital staff writer for In Touch Weekly (and occasionally Life & Style and Closer Weekly), you can find her either hanging out at home binge-watching something on Netflix with her cat or out finding something to do in New York City, where she’s wanted to live since she first saw that terrible film adaptation of Rent. Josie is a self-proclaimed fangirl and loves anything even remotely geeky or nerdy, but does also find time in her schedule to catch up on select reality TV series. She’s also a big music fan and still has an old school iPod with nearly 15,000 songs on it.
Work or writing background leading to expertise
As a professional writer for over 10 years, Josie has been in the thick of the changing media landscape. While she got her start in traditional print media in Central New York, she’s now all about that digital media life. Josie has worked in news writing, covered the latest memes and conquered the world of TV recaps, and managed content for clients ranging from SEO-heavy blog posts to their social media accounts. She’s also appeared on podcasts but is usually too self-conscious to listen to them after.
Josie also regularly covers events like New York Comic Con as press, and once almost passed out when a member of the Teen Wolf cast winked at her and touched her shoulder during a press line. She kept her cool and finished the interview like a pro, for the record.
Education
Josie is a proud graduate of the State University of New York system and graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2011. She earned a degree in English with a writing focus, a minor in journalism, and a concentration in gender and women’s studies. She acted as secretary for the university’s women’s concerns organization during her senior year and contributed to an on-campus newsletter while continuing independent blogging work outside of her studies.
Work history
Technically, Josie got her start as a writer thanks to her small town newspaper, which let her do freelance writing about everything from maple syrup season to community activities for kids (support local media, friends!). She moved to New York City in 2012 to do a service year with AmeriCorps and started writing part-time for a now-defunct website writing TV recaps and reviews, which she did on and off for 5 years.
Josie worked for non-profits or in politics for a while before deciding she missed writing and wanted to do it more, and eventually landed staff writer roles with Romper (a Bustle sister site) and Inverse. She worked primarily in news, TV, culture, and science and tech verticals in those positions. Josie started as a digital staff writer at In Touch in October 2018 and covers everything from reality TV news to breaking true crime stories. Her work also appears on Life & Style and Closer Weekly. She particularly enjoys doing news coverage but is savvy at tackling anything from the Kardashians to the latest 90 Day Fiancé drama.
