I'm an editor and journalist, but I also consult for home and design clients, write ad and marketing copy, and magazine writing. I've ghostwritten a decorating book and do TV, too.
I can be reached at sophiedonelson (at) mac (dot) com.
Currently freelancing and helping launch The Editor at Large, a revolutionary new website for the design community. This past summer I served as Editor in Chief of Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, a seasonal home design magazine focusing on the South Fork of Long Island—and also the publication at which I began my career in NYC.
Before returning to HC&G, I was a freelance writer—this site was created to showcase my articles. In late 2007 I briefly held a senior editor post at Blueprint, the late women's lifestyle magazine published by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Before that, I was at Elle Decor where, as senior writer, I wrote and edited articles about decorating, art, trends, and interior designers. In 2004 and 2005 I was executive editor of CITY magazine, a national lifestyle magazine a repeat ASME winner, where I oversaw all the words. My first gig in NYC was at Hamptons Cottages & Gardens magazine, where I cut my teeth in decorating with an editorial dream team: Newell Turner (now House Beautiful's style director) and Lockhart Steele (the founder of Curbed). (Yes, the dream team comprised two people).
My articles have appeared in Interior Design, Elle, Departures, Manhattan, Martha Stewart Living, Connecticut Cottages & Gardens, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, InStyle, I.D., Time Out New York, Daily Candy, and others. And I've edited and contributed to custom-published magazines and marketing materials for clients such as W Hotels/Starwood, Corcoran Sunshine, Samsung, Citigroup, Macy's/Federated, Hanky Panky, and Virgin Atlantic.
I spend most of my time crafting text but I also enjoy straight-up crafts. My desk doubles as a work table. (Last major project: drafting my wedding dress.) The subjects I write about have grown out of my passion for visuals, especially period architecture, textile and pattern design, and all facets of interior design. I keep tabs on trends in art, architecture, and fashion, all of which inform my ideas for stories and what to recommend to clients.
I grew up in north-central Massachusetts in a town that gets by with a single blinking yellow light. My parents are photographers-turned-silkscreeners, and my sister is an artist. (I have plenty to hang on my walls.) I studied Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston and moved to NYC to attend the Columbia Publishing Course in Manhattan. I found my first place on Craigslist--the maid's room of an Upper West Side classic six with generous molding. I've since graduated to a Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, two-bedroom that I share with my husband, Greg Lindsay, a journalist. It is, sadly, sans maid's room, but it has great molding and room for my sewing machine.





