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My name is Tolly Moseley, and I am a 20-something writer and blogger in Austin, Texas.
I grew up in San Antonio, attended college at a little tiny private school called Southwestern University, then grad school at a giant research university called the University of California: Davis. Both for literature, and specifically, Victorian literature. If you ever happen to be a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and get a question about the Brontës, please don't panic. This phone-a-friend has got you totally covered.
In between college and grad school, I spent a year in Austin teaching children's dance, after-school art classes, and kids' yoga. And during that year, I discovered the two grand loves of my life.
The first one was Austin, Texas, a city whose funky creativity, swimming holes, collective enthusiasm for both bacon as well as tofu, vintage clothing stores, and vibrant live music scene seduced me immediately. Irrevocably.
I now believe that Austin picks people, and ever since I first pressed my face up against the car window as I cruised down our main strip, Guadalupe, I knew what it felt like to be home.
The second love of my life smiled at me during my first day teaching kids yoga. So after a few months, I asked him out. His name is Ross.
Ross is a children's music teacher, a bassist/drummer/guitarist in a few Austin bands, a fantastic wearer of mustaches (both real and non), and as of October 2007, my husband.
We met working at a little private school in Hyde Park, where we would exchange our vows three years later. To this day, he is my favorite partner in crime, the person who makes me laugh the hardest, and is able to erase my insecurities instantaneously with a single arch of the eyebrow. I like how he looks when he plays the bass.
(Actually, I like Ross in all of his guises. But I think he especially shines as Oprah.
We met working at a little private school in Hyde Park, where we would exchange our vows three years later. To this day, he is my favorite partner in crime, the person who makes me laugh the hardest, and is able to erase my insecurities instantaneously with a single arch of the eyebrow. I like how he looks when he plays the bass.
(Actually, I like Ross in all of his guises. But I think he especially shines as Oprah.
However, that is just my opinion.)
But before all that, Ross and the wedding and the continuing love affair with Austin, there was this little matter of grad school to tend to.
As it turned out, I wasn't the best grad school student in the whole wide world.
I did ok grade-wise. But while I was there, pounding away papers on Oscar Wilde and Jacques Derrida and hearing myself say things like, "but seriously, do you think historical materialism is a better framework for understanding plot structure in The Picture of Dorian Gray than the conventional queer theory mode? Because I just don't know!" I began to feel increasingly cut off from the real world.
To cope with it all, I got a job working at a city magazine in Sacramento, and became wildly infatuated with city journalism. My co-editors came from InStyle and Money Magazine, so I got this terrific New York-school education in magazine reporting. (I also learned what it's like to subsist on Chinese takeout and Honey Bunches of Oats, a diet plan I generally recommend avoiding.)
When I moved back to Austin in 2007, I decided to try my hand as a freelance writer, and have been story-telling on assignment ever since.
Officially, I write food & drink stories, and interviews with artists and eco/green types. Unofficially, I write about anything that intrigues me, and have covered local transportation methods as well as drag queens with equal fervor. For a full list of media outlets, please see the bottom of this page.
I started Austin Eavesdropper around that time too, and back then, it was purely a way for me to keep track of dance parties downtown. After all those studious years in the ivory tower you see, I craved DJ's ... and vodka. But as I calmed down, the blog calmed down, and I began writing about the local music scene, foods I had tasted, story tidbits I heard on the street. Sensing a burgeoning blogger community begining to form here in Austin in 2009, I threw a party for bloggers with a couple of my friends that June, and we called it "The Austin Bleet-Up" (blogger + meet-up). There have been four total now! At each one, we've showcased local culinary establishments, bands, and fashion designers, and it's a raucous good time.
In 2010, The Austin American-Statesman awarded me and Austin Eavesdropper a Texas Social Media Award. I was named among the Top 25 Social Media People in Texas, and still possess a yellowing, tear-stained (happy tears!) copy of the newspaper from that day.
When I'm not writing or blogging, I am a book publicist for this company. I also practice aerial silk dancing, read books like a voracious word glutton, and pet this adorable little face.
(That is our baby Claudia, whom we care for like a child. A child that is frighteningly adept at hunting birds, and may or may not be addicted to catnip.)
I hope you enjoy your stay here on Austin Eavesdropper! Thank you so much for coming by and hanging out. I relish each reader, your sweet and funny comments, and your supportive vibes. Cheers to you.
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To see where Austin Eavesdropper has been mentioned in the press, click here.
To see my freelance writing clippings, click below:
Rare Magazine (here is a little sampling. I wrote there from 2007 - 2009, and contributed over 100 stories).
Austinist: A column called "The Informed Drinker"
SheKnows.com: Two interior design columns, "The Inspiration Board" and "The Unplugged Home"
CultureMap --stories release July 2011
Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine --story release Spring 2012
