✏️🛠️ 'Give Yourself Permission to Tell Personal Stories': How One Book Designer Successfully Moonlights as a Writer

After already having a fulfilling career as a designer and art director, Stacy Wakefield Forte embarked on a new artistic pursuit as a writer. Here’s how she managed to succeed all over again.

Photo courtesy of Stacy Wakefield; collage by Yunuen Bonaparte

Many people struggle to find one thing they’re both passionate about and successful at, let alone two. But multi-hyphenate book designer and author Stacy Wakefield Forte is that rare exception. She started her publishing career in the ’90s by co-founding an independent press called Evil Twin Publications that put out artist books and zines, before moving on to art direct and edit book packages for other publishers. Stacy has designed everything from art, architecture and cooking books to record covers to business directories for small towns. 

Plus, she’s held stints as design director at magazines Artforum and Index, and she put out a series of books with pals Zachary Lipez and Nick Zinner that included Zachary’s writing, Nick’s photography and her art direction and design. All that before making her author debut in her 40s with her acclaimed indie novel, The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory. Stacy is currently art directing books at Union Square & Co. in New York and working on a coming-of-age novel set in the Amsterdam anarchist squatting scene in the early ’90s. Full disclosure: I’m lucky enough to call Stacy a good friend and she is truly one of the most productive and motivated artists I know. Which is why I wanted to pick her brain about how exactly she finds the time and energy to work on her art in addition to making a living. Read on to find out her secrets.