If you’re gonna do GOSSIP GIRL, you gotta reveal the gossip girl herself: Cecily von Ziegasar.

In her FIRST podcast interview ever (XOXO!!!) Cecily tells IWAW what it was like to write for teens back when no one else was writing for teens. In addition to many personally inspiring experiences, Cecily shares the classic novel that helped her write GOSSIP GIRL. And guess what? That 1920 novel features a fallen woman!

In Season 5, we’ve gone from MUCH ADO, in which Hero finds her virginal reputation ruined by gossip, to GOSSIP GIRL, in which characters swim in gossip. Amidst the constantly changing currents, the girls rise, sink, and swim to the surface again. Does GOSSIP GIRL demonstrate female resilience? Does it mean the fallen woman trope has died? Or does it mean fallen women are society’s main spectacle?

This discussion mostly focuses on the book series from the early 2000’s, but we do touch on the television series at several points. And, yes, we do talk about Chuck Bass…because, well, he’s Chuck Bass.

Along the way, Sonja shares a Christmas tradition, and Vanessa & Cecily are rather surprised.

You know you love us! XOXO, the IWAW Girls

Sharon is–deservedly so–America’s Government Teacher. She joins us today to talk about her eloquent and beautifully-illustrated children’s book, WE ARE MIGHTY.

Join Sonja and Vanessa in finding out how Sharon adapted her work for a younger audience, her own experience in high school history class, finding her writing voice, how to find untold stories to tell, and why she dropped pre-med as her major…in a surprisingly eerie story.

Along the way, Sharon shares her love of pigeons and feeds Sonja and Vanessa some baby carrots.

REFERENCES:

To learn more about Emma Lazarus, the poet Sharon mentions, click here.

To learn more about the American Exchange Project that Sonja is involved in, go to the American Exchange Project website.

For more details on Sharon McMahon’s banned commencement address, check out this Newsweek article from April 2026.

To read the address that Sharon had prepared to give: Sharon McMahon: My Message to the Class of 2026

Hallie Rubenhold’s THE FIVE sheds light on the lives of the 5 women who were murdered by Jack the Ripper in London in 1888. So much of history has focused on these women’s final hours, their deaths, the macabre nature of their wounds, and the assumption that they were all bad women who put themselves in harm’s way. In other words, since they were seen as fallen women, they were in essence blamed for their own murders.

Sonja and Vanessa offer a brief bio of each woman, and an overview of Rubenhold’s carefully reasoned and meticulously-researched argument for seeing these women as 3 dimensional people who deserve to be remembered and their loss mourned. And while no one would claim that Victorian England was a fair playing field, we’ll explain how Rubenhold’s research reveals how Victorian society was astonishingly stacked against women, specifically.

Along the way, there are honestly not a lot of bright spots, but a “jolly bonnet” and an unlikely tattoo can be made out under the gas lamp lights of this grim historical time and place for women.

REFERENCES:

Please, please, please treat yourself to reading Hallie Rubenhold's The Five. She writes a compelling narrative for each woman, and you’ll come away with a breathtakingly detailed impression of the complicated world these women were doing their best to survive. The writing is fresh, and the amount of literal digging Rubenhold must have done to get past all the false narratives to actual truth is stunning. It’s historical narrative at its best, and the final chapter is an impassioned, moving assessment of how laws, religion, social mores, journalists, and historians have all failed these women. THE FIVE is a tour de force, and we could not recommend it more highly.