A farewell – and a new beginning – for the Feministing Five

I have an announcement to make: last week’s interview with Vera Farmiga was the last Feministing Five interview I’ll be conducting. As of tomorrow, Anna will be taking over the Feministing Five. It has been such a pleasure to run the Feministing interview series for the last two years, and it’s with great excitement that I hand the responsibility over to Anna, who I know will do great things with this series.

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve conducted about 85 interviews, with politicians, activists, writers, professors, comedians, and one fictional character. My first interview ran almost exactly two years ago, on August 29, and it was with Rachel Griffin and Josh Phillips, a team of sexual assault prevention educators.

I got to interview a bunch of Rachels over the last two years, actually. There was Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out and The Curse of the Good Girl, Rachel Lloyd, founder of GEMS, and of course, Rachel Maddow.

Other highlights, for me included the brilliant author, teacher and commentator Melissa Harris-Perry, Jay Smooth, whose commentary on race, politics and pop culture has become an indispensible part of my media diet, Rebecca Traister, the Salon reporter who wrote one of the best books about politics I’ve read in quite some time, and Zach Wahls, the young Iowa man who testified so compelling in favor of marriage equality earlier this year and who still refuses to accept my marriage proposal.

Don’t miss Anna’s first interview tomorrow! It’s with Lizz Winstead, the feminist comedian and co-creator of “The Daily Show.” Winstead is currently touring around the country doing stand up comedy, with all proceeds going to Planned Parenthood.

And now, without further ado, I’ll say farewell to the Feministing Five.