Gail Collins

Born in Cincinnati in 1945 as Gail Gleason,[1] Collins attended Seton High School before earning a B.A. in journalism at Marquette University in 1967 and an M.A. in government at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971.[6][7]

Following graduation from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she wrote for Connecticut publications, including the Hartford Advocate,[8] and, in 1972, founded the Connecticut State News Bureau, a news service providing coverage of the state capital and Connecticut politics.[9] When she sold the bureau in 1977, it had grown into the largest service of its kind in the United States.[9] As a freelance writer in the late 1970s, she wrote weekly columns for the Connecticut Business Journal and was a public affairs host for Connecticut Public Television.[9][10]

From 1982 to 1985 Collins covered finance as a reporter for United Press International.[6][9] She wrote as a columnist for the New York Daily News from 1985 to 1991.[6][9]

From 1991 to 1995, Collins worked for Newsday.[6][9] She then joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board,[7] and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001, she was named the paper's first female Editorial Page Editor, a position she held for six years. She resigned from this post at the beginning of 2007 to take a six-month leave to focus on writing her book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, returning to the Times as a regular columnist in July 2007.[2]

Beyond her work as a journalist, Collins has published several books: The Millennium Book, which she co-authored with her husband, CBS News producer Dan Collins; Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics; America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines; the aforementioned When Everything Changed; and As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda.[2][11][12] She also wrote the introduction for the 50th-anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; the 50th-anniversary edition was published in 2013.[13] In 2019, her book No Stopping Us Now: The Adventures of Older Women in American History was published.[14]

Collins taught journalism at Southern Connecticut State University from 1977 to 1979; and from fall 2009 until 2012, she co-taught (with Seth Lipsky) an opinion writing course at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.[11] She has been a frequent guest on NPR and on Jon Wiener's podcast, Start Making Sense.[15][16]

External video
Booknotes interview with Collins on America's Women, December 14, 2003, C-SPAN
Washington Journal interview with Collins on When Everything Changed, October 20, 2009, C-SPAN
After Words interview with Collins on When Everything Changed, January 2, 2010, C-SPAN
Discussion with Collins on As Texas Goes...', June 10, 2012, C-SPAN
Interview with Collins on When Everything Changed, January 15, 2017, C-SPAN
Interview with Collins on Now Stopping Us Now, September 26, 2020, C-SPAN

• With Dan Collins: The Millennium Book. Main Street Books. 1990. ISBN 0-385-41165-0.
• America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines. William Morrow and Company. 2003. ISBN 0-06-018510-4.
• Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics. William Morrow and Company. 1998. ISBN 0-688-14914-6.
• When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. Little, Brown and Company. 2009. ISBN 978-0-316-05954-1.
• As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 2012. ISBN 978-0-87140-407-7
• William Henry Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 9th President, 1841. New York: Times Books, 2012. ISBN 9780805091182
• "Introduction" (2013), in: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique. 50th anniversary edition. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-063790.
• No Stopping Us Now: A History of Older Women in America. Little, Brown and Company, 2019 ISBN 9780316286541

• Gail Collins' page at the New York Times
• Gail Collins author page at W.W. Norton
• Gail Collins page at NPR
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Booknotes interview with Collins (December 14, 2003), concerning her book, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines