Gabrielle Birkner

Writer • Editor • Content Strategist

Gabrielle is a Los Angeles-based journalist. She has more than a decade of experience developing, launching, and growing editorial products at legacy news organizations and start-ups. She is the co-author of “Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome” (Harper Wave, 2018).

The book grew out of Modern Loss, the content platform and online community that she co-founded. in 2013. The site publishes personal essays about living with loss — in all its messiness, melancholy, and occasional hilarity.

A graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Gabi is the features editor and fellowship director at Chalkbeat. Previously, she served as managing editor at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and digital director at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Cut, Vice, Quartz, The Daily Beast, and many other publications. Some clips are here.

She talks nationally on topics such as young adult grief, Jewish mourning rituals, and building online communities. She has been a featured speaker at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Amazon HQ, and the Miami Book Fair.

One thing you wouldn’t know from reading her résumé: Paul Rudd DJ’d her bat mitzvah (no really, there’s proof).