What makes someone a good advice columnist?
Image: Mashable, Bob Al-Greene Amy Dickinson doesn’t think herself a know-it-all, and she doesn’t pretend to be. That’s why she’s so good at her job. She’s been a popular advice columnist for “Ask Amy” for more than a decade. She’s funny, self-aware and more open than you’d ever expect. Her responses to personal letters reach millions in syndication throughout the U.S. But what makes her qualified to give advice? She’s just like you and me. “I have a bachelor’s degree in English literature,” Dickinson laughs. “But aside from that, you might learn I have five children, I have grandchildren, I’m a stepmother, I was a single mom, I grew up in poverty … I’ve really been paying attention.” Dickinson is part of a crop of modern-day advice columnists who follow in the grand tradition of people like “Dear Abby” and “Ann Landers” — pseudonyms that entered people’s homes in the 1940s and ’50s and quickly became family legacies and national institutions. But as we hurtle deeper into the Internet age, today’s most popular columnists — from “Ask Amy” to “Dear Sugar” to “Dear Prudence” — are entering the field in totally different ways. And they’re all evolving the advice column for a contemporary audience hungry for intimacy and tough love. In this letter, Dickinson lets a woman have it for not inviting her sister out, simply because her sister didn’t fit in and wasn’t an avid churchgoer: Dear Sad: First, let’s establish that I agree with your sister: You are a horrible person. Obviously, you can do whatever you want and associate with — or exclude — whomever you want, but you don’t get to do this and also blame the person you are excluding for not “fitting in.” The only way your sister would ever fit in would be for you to make room for her. You are unwilling to do that, and that is your choice. But her being upset is completely justified, and you’ll just have to live with that. Perhaps this is something you could ponder from your church pew, because despite your regular attendance, you don’t seem to have learned much. Today’s columnists aren’t trying to be experts; in fact, they’re transparent about their flaws. At the end of the day, that might be their greatest qualification. Prepping to take calls on Thanksgiving tomfoolery for @onpointradio #butterballhotline pic.twitter.com/W4NgeqxlPc — Amy Dickinson (@AskingAmy) November 26, 2014 Dickinson had a variety of jobs before she became one of the foremost advice columnists in the nation: NBC producer, freelance writer, TIME columnist focused on family living. When that column discontinued, she applied to take over “Ann Landers,” the popular Chicago Tribune advice series run by the late Eppie Lederer. To stand out from the hundreds of unsolicited applications, Dickinson wrote sample clips and became the clear favorite for the job. The Trib ran her first column on July 20, 2003. Her first decision: no pseudonym. She admits attaching her real name to the column was a little self-serving […]