Quirkyalone

Meet Sasha

Author photo. Photo credit: Lane Hartwell, http://fetching.net

Sasha Cagen is the founder of the quirkyalone movement. She loves writing and inspiring people to embrace their full humanity in all their quirky glory. She is an entrepreneur who builds communities around new ideas. She is the author of Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics (Harper One, 2004) and To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

She consults to Internet startups to help them create community and she coaches people to help them get in touch with what they want in life.

Sasha’s work as a writer and community-builder has been featured by more than 100 national outlets, including Anderson Cooper, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time, and USA Today.

Her essays have appeared in the Village Voice, Utne, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, 7 x 7, and numerous anthologies, including A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World (St. Martin’s), The Factsheet Five Zine Reader (Simon and Schuster), ReGeneration: Telling Stories from our Twenties (Putnam), and Before the Mortgage: True Stories about First Loves, First Jobs, and the Perplexing Pursuit of Adulthood (Simon Spotlight).

Sasha expressed her love for print magazines by publishing To-Do List, a print magazine that used the idea of a to-do list to explore details of modern life. Among other major recognition, To-Do List was named Best New Magazine of 2000 in Utne’s Alternative Press Awards, Reader’s Choice. She continued the project on todolistblog.com, a blog that publishes handwritten lists.

In addition to her work as a writer and web publisher, Sasha works in social media as a grassroots marketer and product manager. She was co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer for StyleMob, a street fashion social network that she and her co-founders sold to Glam Media in 2007.

Sasha is the creator of International Quirkyalone Day (Feb. 14), a growing alternative to Valentine’s Day that celebrates all forms of love, that has grown into a celebration spanning more than 40 cities.

Sasha is an experienced speaker who has spoken on a variety of topics to many different audiences, from engineers and business people to students and retirees, at a range of venues, including the Grace Cathedral, Boston College, Google, Adaptive Path, the Omega Institute, Hollyhock, the Conference of World Affairs at Colorado University, Boulder, Sonoma State University, University of San Francisco, the Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing, and a host of others.

She has led workshops at two of North America’s leading retreat centers: Hollyhock, in Canada, and Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, New York. She’s trained as a life coach and works with a small group of clients to help them identify what they want in life most–and to go for it.

Sasha attended Amherst College and graduated from Barnard College.

As a celiac, Sasha is an advocate for greater awareness of celiac disease and a U.S. gluten labeling law on our foods. Sasha is also passionate about tango and its ability to inspire meditative healing and bliss.

Sasha is passionate about tango and travel. She recently completed a year of solo travel in South America; she blogged about her travel experiences for the Huffington Post and on her travel blog unplannedadventure.wordpress.com. She speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese. A proud Rhode Island native, Sasha currently lives in Oakland, California and plans lots more (gluten-free) travel and to live in Buenos Aires.

If you are interested in hiring Sasha as a writer, coach, or marketing consultant, please contact her at sasha AT sashacagen.com.

Sasha asks you not to call her “the quirkyalone” in public. Like all quirkyalones, she is so much more.

Sasha Cagen on Twitter
Sasha Cagen on Huffington Post
Sasha Cagen at Authors@Google
Sasha Cagen on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Sasha Cagen on Anderson Cooper