Sarah Gray Miller is the editor-in-chief of Modern Farmer. Modern Farmer is the authoritative resource for today’s cutting-edge food producers and consumers: the farmers, wannabe farmers, chefs, and passionate home cooks who are influencing the way we eat right now. Blending hands-in-dirt service, soulful inspiration, and whip-smart reporting, Modern Farmer understands that a tomato is never just a tomato—it’s also a political, and deeply personal, statement about who we want to be and the world we hope to live in. Prior to this role, she has served as the editor-in-chief of Country Living, Budget Living, O at Home, and Organic Style. Sarah Gray currently lives in Athens, New York with her rescue dog, Mr. Chips.
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? From age 22 on, my life experience has been work experience, which is detailed below. I became a New Yorker the moment I graduated from high school in 1989, but my baby days—spent in Mississippi, easily the most derided U.S. state—imbued me with an underdog’s perspective.
How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Modern Farmer?
The obvious answer involves subject matter: I’ve learned a great deal about horticulture, food, design, environmental activism, and ex-urban lifestyle fantasies at magazines like Garden Design, Saveur, Organic Style, O at Home, and Country Living. That’s why I speak fluent botanical Latin, know my way away around a recipe, have contacts that come in handy, and empathize with the desire to flee a corporate cubicle in favor of a patch of dirt, a generously sized kitchen, and a sense of community.
Less apparent, but equally important, factors:
I lucked into an entry-level job at a small, smart-up publishing company, helmed by an incredibly generous woman. At Saveur and Garden Design, editorial director Dorothy Kalins forced—and trusted—me to fill all kinds of roles, from receptionist and executive assistant to photo researcher and fact checker, from stylist’s assistant and location scout to writer and editor. I gained hands-on experience in nearly every facet of the business.
I’ve also logged time at major corporations like Time, Inc., or Hearst, and those companies have synthesized decades of knowledge—across all sorts of brands—into an indispensable set of best practices.
What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Modern Farmer?
The two go hand-in-hand. The upside and downside of helming a small, cash-strapped start-up are that you’ve got to do the work yourself…and that you’ve got to do the work yourself. I love getting back to the basics of reporting, writing, and filling out Fed-Ex labels. I’m incredibly intimate with my subject matter here. I’m also forging unbreakable “in-the-trenches” bonds with co-workers.
What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry?
Apprentice. Apprentice. Apprentice. Especially if you can land an internship or assistant position with an indie media company—and identify an editor willing to take you under her wing. I learned more at my first job than any grad school could have taught me. I earned peanuts, but at least I wasn’t shelling out for a master’s degree. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date? Treat other people the way you want to be treated. Realize that your current assistant could become your future boss. It’s not about being a people-pleasing softy, but rather, recognizing that respect is earned, not demanded. I believed my mother when she told me that dirt comes out in the wash, and that true success results from keeping your nose clean and pressed against that proverbial grindstone. Basic decency is an underrated currency. I still rely on business relationships I formed decades ago.
How do you maintain a work/life balance?
What is this balance you speak of? The “women can have it all” fantasy is just that: a fantasy.
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
That self-confidence, directness, and basic leadership skills are still characterized as bitchiness or bossiness.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I owe my entire career, and the attendant personal benefits, to mentorship. Every time I cash a paycheck and spend its proceeds on a dinner party, home-improvement project, or planting scheme, I silently thank Dorothy Kalins—founding editor of Metropolitan Home, Saveur, and Garden Design—for taking a chance on this smart-ass kid from Mississippi.
Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
In addition to Dorothy, I have the utmost admiration for Amy Gross and Gayle King, my bosses at O at Home. Though Amy and Gayle never told me what to do, they led me to question my own assumptions constantly. Oprah herself is a paragon of top-down, values-driven leadership. She sets a tone that every employee strives to live up to. And I think that Hillary Clinton is capability personified.
What do you want Modern Farmer to accomplish in the next year?
I’m an optimistic dreamer, so nothing less than world media domination: Branded books, events, video, licensing deals.