Kate SloanInterview
Freelance writer
Adapted from Kate Sloan's interview on Uses This, published 25 May 2021. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
My spouse Matthew Bischoff gave me a 13" 2018 MacBook Air for my birthday a couple years ago, because my tiny old 11" one had seen better days.
My phone is an iPhone XS, currently decked out in a LookHuman case emblazoned with flowers and cartoon penises.
I also have an iPad mini 5 that I bought refurbished last year, because I have a chronic pain condition that sometimes makes it difficult for me to sit upright at a computer long enough to finish a piece of writing.
I use it with an Adonit Mark stylus and sometimes with a fancy walnut stand from Yohann, which works great for my purposes because it's designed to be useable on soft surfaces, and I spend a lot of time writing in bed during pain flare-ups.
I read a lot on my 9th-generation Kindle Oasis – I love that it's waterproof so I can take it in the bath.
(My favorite vape is the AirVape X, by the way!) I'd be remiss not to shout out my Day-Light seasonal affective disorder lamp, which my parents bought me in 2007 when I was a surly depressed teenager; it sits on my desk and does double duty as a depression treatment and an absurdly bright light source for video calls.
Communication
For blogging, I use Wordpress with the Editorial Calendar plug-in, which helps me see visually what's coming up and what still needs to be written.
I talk to cohosts and guests over Skype and we each record ourselves separately.
Productivity
Notes
I'm an obsessive user of the humble Notes app, despite my app developer spouse frequently trying to introduce me to better note-taking software.
The Stickies app works well for keeping my notes and questions on the screen for me to reference while I'm chatting with a guest.
Security
Coding & Development
I wrote my book in Scrivener, which is the best software I've tried for long-form writing projects.
I usually do social media writing in Sublime Text because it's fast and simple.
Media
For podcasting, I record in Audacity – it's been my go-to since ~2004, when I started my first podcast at age 12 (what a nerd).
I edit in Adobe Audition, mostly because that's what they taught us at journalism school and I didn't want to learn a different system.
I use the Piezo call recorder app as a backup when we have guests, or when I'm interviewing a source for a story.