Introducing: The Maine Millennial

Julia Spencer-Fleming: One of the great pleasures of parenthood is seeing your kids grow and blossom as they enter into adulthood. When you look at their tiny faces in childhood, you try hard to see the future. Dancer? Financier? Psychologist? Newspaper columnist?

I'm rather ridiculously pleased to say that last refers to my oldest daughter, Victoria Hugo-Vidal (known to all on JRW as The Smithie.) Victoria is the newest and youngest columnist at the state's largest and most widely-circulated newspaper, the Portland Press-Herald. In exchange for a delicious meal of German Potato Salad Casserole, she has agreed to be interviewed about the first four months of what I hope will be an illustrious writing career. 

 

JSF: How did you get started as a columnist? Were you writing professionally before the Portland Press Herald?

VHV: I got started at the Press Herald through stubbornness and a deathbed promise. I wouldn’t stop sending in letters to the editor and one got a lot of views and started a lot of conversations online. (It was about millennials, and EVERYONE has an opinion about millennials. Everyone and their mother.) It was declared ‘letter of the month,’ I was invited to the newspaper’s podcast, and apparently the editorial board decided the oldest state in the nation needed a youthful voice in circulation….and I do have a loud voice.

As for the deathbed promise factor: I have been unable to confirm it either way, but the senior editor of the paper is a friend of my family’s, and he visited my father in hospice. He hasn’t spoken of their meeting, but knowing my father, he guilt-tripped the editor into giving my talent a chance. (It’s hard to say no to a terminal cancer patient.) That’s my dad for you. Always looking out for his lovely and talented wife and daughter.

How do you decide your topics? Do you have a particular brief as a columnist?

I was hired on to bring a millennial perspective, so I try to lean towards topics that are important to us youths or columns explaining things to old people (my first column was explaining Tinder). Mostly, my goal is to make my readers smile, and to bring a new perspective into their lives - to think outside their box, if you will. I’ve taken on some serious topics, like racism and gun violence, but I’ve also written about my grandparents’ romance and about all the shenanigans my cat has gotten into.

I have a running note on my computer that says “column ideas.” I add to it when I get one. Right now, among others, there is “why millennials like socialism,” “that time I accidentally won a medal at the state championship track meet,” and “Ice Storm of 98.” Stay tuned every other Saturday!

What’s your writing and editing process like?

I usually bang out a draft on my lunch break at work (I do have a real job) and then edit when I get home. Because I’m just writing my thoughts, and don’t have to worry about things like “plot” or “characters,” and because I have an awful lot of thoughts, it tends to get done pretty quickly. Then I send it into my editor to make sure it passes muster and won’t make too many readers clutch their pearls.

What are the best things/worst things about being a columnist for a large regional paper?

The best thing is getting to connect with people from all around Maine. I get a lot of emails from people who say I remind them of their child or grandchild; or that they have hope for my generation. I love being able to distract people from the usual partisan doom and gloom of the editorial pages and give the 700 words of me and my mother attempting to buy a car instead. And due to my mother, I had a built-in fanbase the day I started. I have an army of murder-mystery-loving grandmas behind me.

The worst part is that my dad isn’t here to brag to all his co-workers about me. I know he would buy stacks of every paper my column was in. I am also scared of being recognized in a Dunkin Donuts before I’ve brushed my hair and made myself presentable for the day.

Can you share some of the more interesting reader mail you’ve gotten?

Without a doubt, the absolute best comment left on one of my articles was this: 

“Way to go, Portland Press Herald. Hugo-Vidal uses her column to solicit dates with both men and women, and the Press Herald enables it. When I call them on it, what do they do? They delete my comment, of course.”

I sent it to my editor and he replied, dry as the desert, “Before you became a columnist, you had absolutely no way to get dates. It’s true.”

(And the comment was, in fact, later deleted. I don’t know by whom.)

Most of the emails I get are from amazing people who have wonderful, thoughtful things to say. It’s a big boost to my ego. Because my title is “The Maine Millennial,” 80% of emails to me begin with a person telling me their age (which is usually over 60, because that’s newspaper’s demographics) and then saying I remind them of their grandchildren, which is the ultimate compliment. I also had a reader email me last week and he told me he was a liberal republican. 

Truly, Maine is the way life should be.

What do you think, dear readers? Do you have a favorite 
columnist? Do you remember your first exciting job? 

You can follow The Maine Millennial on Twitter 
as @Mainemillennial or give her a piece of your mind 
at TheMaineMillennial at gmail dot com.