Trespassing With … Rachel Hills

There’s a lot to be said for this month’s Trespassing With muse. A household at breakfast time could encounter her in more ways than one: the father reading her credible opinion columns in The Sydney Morning Herald, the university student checking out her musings on her tumblr blog, the high school teen following her advice in one of her Girlfriend features, the mother listening to her speak on the radio.

From politics to beauty, sexuality to religion, the environment to pop culture, her all-encompassing portfolio has spanned the high-brow and the glossy, the newspaper and the magazine, not to mention stints on  radio, television and online media, cementing her as one of the most prolific, educated and accessible writers of our generation.

Her accomplishments as a writer, speaker, blogger and mentor go far and wide, and despite her very young age, she has already made envy-worthy headway in the media industry. But the thing that makes her Trespass material is not her achievements and envy-worthy status per se – it’s the simple fact that although she’s (by our standards) earned herself a pedestal through her work, she’s more than willing to take others on the journey.

I should know – after all, it is her advice, counsel and constant mentoring that transformed me from a nervous intern with no clue on making progress as a freelance writer to a young woman who’s got herself a wee little portfolio and is one step closer to living the dream. And considering she’s an ambassador for this year’s Emerging Writer’s Festival in Melbourne, my transformation won’t be the only notch in her already full belt.

Trespassing With …Rachel Hills

•1. Name: Rachel Hills

2. Occupation: Writer/Editor/Cool Project Manager/Blogger/Research Student

•3. Fave book: Tete-a-Tete: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre, by Hazel Rowley.

4. Fave movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Love Actually.

•5. Fave shopping spot: King Street, Newtown. Somewhere cheap but well-cut. Or Myer.

6. My best memory: July 4, 2006, in Washington DC. Started the day interviewing Maureen Dowd at the New York Times, walked with an anti-Bush protest for a while, watched the Independence Day Parade go by, then finished with drinks on the roof of a politically-opposed think tank. Totally nerdy, but totally fabulous.

•7. When I was little I wanted to: be a scientist who learned how to communicate with dolphins. They’re actually doing that now, you know.

•8. Fave TV Show: Gossip Girl

•9. Can’t live without: My friends and family.

•10. If I could live anywhere in the world, I would choose: New York City

•11. Last film I watched was: Changeling

•12. First album I ever bought: Steam, East 17

•13. Song I can’t get out of my head: At the moment, this lame jingle for a bikini-line razor (http://rachelhills.tumblr.com/post/92759324/mow-the-lawn-shaving-ad).

•14. I wish I wrote/sang/directed: Some paradigm-shifting feminist book. Hopefully coming soon to a bookstore near you.

•15. When I grow up I want to be: doing what I’m doing now, only bigger and better.

•16. My goals for the next two years: Write a book that changes the way people think.

•17. Five years: I’m not really the type to plan ahead – I prefer to just let things unfold and take up opportunities as they arise. That being said, I’d like to have written for the Atlantic Monthly and/or New Yorker would be good. I’d also like to have lived overseas.

•18. Ten years: Way too far ahead for me to conceive at this point. But doing something exciting in writing or publishing.

•19. The thing that bugs me about life is: It’s almost impossible to achieve the right balance between amazing things to do and time out for myself.

•20. But the thing that makes it all worthwhile is: Despite the stress, it’s a lot of fun, anyway!

•21. Top three travel essentials are: Internet connection, hair straightener (laugh all you want, but it’s amazing how popular it makes you in the hostels), comfortable shoes.

•22. The first thing I do each morning is: Drink a glass of water. Check my email. Maybe go for a run or do yoga/stretches.

•23. I unwind by: Watching trashy TV, running.

•24. The last thing I do at night: Erm, check my email.

•25. I wish I could: give a better answer to that last question than “check my email.”

•26. The celeb I am crushing on, but am embarrassed to admit is: Zac Efron.

•27. The celeb I am crushing loud and proud on is: No one, really. I just like my boyfriend! He’s pretty awesome. I used to have a crush on Obama’s speechwriter, though, before the groping-a-cut-out-of-Hillary-Clinton incident.

28. My most frugal desire is: a day to myself with a pile of books. Rarely achieved, and also rarely as good as imagined in practice.

•29. On Sundays I like to: organise big brunches and/or go on spontaneous adventures with my friends.

30. I got my big break when: I wouldn’t describe it as a “big break” so much as a whole series of little ones. My first mainstream media piece was an article about Germaine Greer’s stint on Big Brother, for the Sydney Morning Herald.

•31. Right now I am craving an orange but normally my fave food is seafood.

•32. Hanging out with inspiring people makes me buzz but conflict depletes me.

33. The advice I’d give Trespass readers is: If there’s something you really want to do, just do it. You’d be surprised what’s possible if you just ask. I managed to send young journos on the election campaign trail when I was 22, and travelled around the US meeting my fave writers and editors when I was 24 – and with no pre-existing connections. Also, make sure you put your hand up for any opportunities that come along, especially when you’re starting out. And if you want to be a writer, then make sure you write – and submit. As I once said: “The early nerd gets their op ed in the Herald (www.smh.com.au).” (These days I’m usually too busy to be the early nerd.)

34. One Reason they should love me is: I cheerfully admit to my fallibilities.

35. Last thing I bought: A lemon, lime and bitters. Last remotely interesting purchase was Bettina Arndt’s new book, The Sex Diaries.

•36. I wish I never: No regrets.

37. Ideal Invention: Something that makes the day last a little big longer.

•38. One word to describe me is: Gregarious.

39. The mark I want to leave on this world: Loving friend and warm person, who lived life to its fullest and wrote nuanced work that inspired people to see the world in new ways.

40. I am on to it by: … well, I hope I’m on to it! That’s for others to judge.