Introducing I Love Your Work

The Dropbox Brand Studio recently kicked off I Love Your Work, a semi-regular event series dedicated to creative appreciation and good conversation. For each event, we choose someone whose work we love, and invite them to join us for a conversation with folks in the creative community.

Raising Up the Dead, with NYT editor Amy Padnani

A few Tuesdays ago, we gathered at the Brooklyn History Society to speak with Amy Padnani, the New York Times editor behind the award-winning Overlooked series. Overlooked tells the stories of remarkable people who never got a Times obit. Obituaries function as the “last word” on who gets remembered, and up to now they’ve been dominated by white men. We love Amy’s work because it offers a richer perspective on the narrative arc of history — one where women and people of color play a meaningful role.

In our conversation with Amy, we learned what it was like to convince the New York Times to acknowledge they’d overlooked key historical figures (answer: relatively smooth, now that the Times has a dedicated gender editor); why obit writing is the purest form of storytelling; and why Amy’s second-favorite obituary is the story of Frances Gabe, inventor of the world’s only self-cleaning home.

We’ll share a transcript of the interview soon.

Share love

We believe that showing appreciation is a radical act. So we’d love to hear about someone whose work you love. Write your person a letter outlining how they’ve inspired, moved, or transformed you. Then send it to the I Love Your Work team (ILYW@dropbox.com) to keep the conversation going.

Stay tuned for the next I Love Your Work We’ll send details about the next I Love Your Work in the new year. In the meantime, we hope your holidays are filled with loads of appreciation, and good conversation.