Amanda Hess is a critic-at-large at the New York Times focusing on internet and pop culture. In 2015 she was awarded the National Magazine Award in Public Interest. Her criticism, profiles and features have appeared in the New York Times magazine, ESPNthe Magazine, Elle, New York magazine, Slate, and Pacific Standard.
While at MacDowell, Hess researched and drafted parts of her debut book, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age (Doubleday, 2025), a work of memoir and criticism about her digital identity crisis as a new mother under the influence of popular technologies.
Marian MacDowell and friends originally named this studio in memory of Anna Baetz, the nurse who helped care for Edward MacDowell in the waning years of his life. With generous support from the Garland family, the studio was renovated in2013 and renamed the Peter and Mary Garland Studio.
The inward opening…
