The Ambition Monster
The Dream
Little Everywhere
4.5 • 15.5K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode, host Jane Marie sits down with Jennifer Romolini, author of the 2024 book “Ambition Monster,” a memoir about chronic overwork that was named one of the best books of the year by Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar. She is also co-host of No Country For Old Women , a podcast for women just trying to live in this world.
You can find more from Jenn (including links to her books) here:
Instagram:@jennromolini
https://www.jenniferromolini.com/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Jane Marie, and this is The Dream. |
| 0:07.1 | Today, we're talking to a woman who I think spends more time thinking about work, what it means, what it says about us, its value, than I do, especially women's work. |
| 0:18.4 | What is it about us here in North America that urges us to equate output |
| 0:22.7 | with our intrinsic worth as humans? And no, she's not wielding an axe all day, but I have |
| 0:30.1 | no doubt she'd be an incredible lumberjill in a pinch. My name is Jennifer Romalini, and I am a writer and a longtime content maker. |
| 0:45.4 | You're a content creator before that was a job. |
| 0:48.4 | Yeah, well, that was exactly the swerve that fucked us all. |
| 0:51.8 | We don't have to curse on this. |
| 0:52.7 | Yes. |
| 0:53.3 | That was exactly the swerve that fucked us all. We don't have to curse on this. Yes. That was exactly the swerve that fucked us all. I remember when it happened when we started calling any kind |
| 0:59.1 | of creative art content. It was exactly like it used to be where I'm making a story. I'm creating |
| 1:05.1 | an article. I'm writing. I'm painting. I'm, you know, doing something digitally that's artistic. And now everything |
| 1:15.2 | is content. And that was when we got screwed. Not just artistic, though, but you write, like, |
| 1:21.2 | thoughtful articles and you explore parts. It's like scholarly in a way and journalistic and, you know, as far as what I |
| 1:32.2 | know of your work. Yes, I've written a lot about work. That's what we're here to talk about. |
| 1:36.8 | Yes, that's what we're here to talk about. But you've written about other things. Can we go back |
| 1:40.7 | a way as to how you got started? Okay. So what's going to be germane to this conversation, |
| 1:48.2 | I think, is that I am a blue-collar kid. I am sort of the product of the American dream. |
| 1:52.9 | My father, and my parents had me as teenagers. We have similar backstories. My dad didn't have a high school |
| 1:58.6 | education. Neither did my mother. They built a business up, got us out of poverty into a, you know, somewhat upper middle class life when that was kind of possible for people to hustle into. |
| 2:10.4 | I started late, like you started late in media. |
| 2:13.8 | I worked my way up through the ranks of New York publishing. |
... |
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