What are your preferred pronouns?

He/Him

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Where's your hometown?

I grew up on a farm in central Illinois near a bunch of towns with less than 1,000 people in them, but I've lived in Atlanta for almost 20 years now. That's my home.

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Tell us a little about your current role.

By day, I’m a Principal Writer, Editorial & Content on the marketing team at Mailchimp. On nights and weekends, I write for all sorts of other places.

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How did you get into copywriting?

I’ve been a writer for almost as long as I can remember, going back to editing letters for my mom as a kid. I started goofing around with fiction in junior high, then journalism in high school, the latter starting to feel like more of a real thing in college. After serving as the arts & entertainment editor of The Maneater at the University of Missouri, I was pretty sure I wanted to write about music for the rest of my life.

Those dubious ambitions led me to Atlanta, where I worked for a music magazine for about five years or so. I got laid off, got rehired, then got asked by a former coworker if I was interested in joining this marketing company with a funny name: Mailchimp. I had never thought of “copywriting” as a thing before then. But over the past 12 years I’ve found a special place for myself on the brand marketing side of things, coming up with all kinds of weird stuff to delight my coworkers and our customers.

It’s been a fun ride, and the stability of the job has given my brain room to roam on all sorts of writerly side projects. The latest of which is an essay series called How I’d Fix Atlanta.

But yeah, writing has taken me to a lot of fun places and taught me a lot about myself and the world. I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop doing it, which is a nice feeling.

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When you're not writing, what are you up to?

I have a six-year-old and a one-year-old who take up a lot of my time. But when I’m not wrangling children with my wife, I try to grow stuff like wildflowers and fruits and vegetables in the yard (and sometimes quietly around my neighborhood). I love eating and drinking and traveling and music and growing stuff—those are the hobbies that make me feel whole and remind me that work isn’t everything. Consider this a reminder to you that work isn’t everything, too.

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What do you consider the most overused word(s)? The most underused?

I’m not sure I have specific words that stand out as over- or underused. Generally speaking, we should all try to avoid cliches. But I’m also a big fan of being weird and making dumb jokes on Twitter, where you can and should subvert language and grammar norms, IMHO. I guess in the same way I don’t believe in "guilty" pleasures, I think there’s a situation for any kind of word, depending on the audience. Nice job avoiding a real answer on this one, Austin!

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What are you reading, listening to and watching these days?

I read a LOT of internet. Essays, journalism, newsletters from writers I admire, etc. As for books, I’ve been dabbling in some George Saunders short stories and Hanif Abdurraqib essays lately.

I have music on 90% of the time I’m conscious, so there’s always a big, mixed bag of what I’ve been listening to. According to my Sonos, recent faves include: Sun Arcs, Tom Waits, ANONHNI, Cat Power, Bill Callahan, Boygenius, Turnstile, Mulatu Astatke, and OutKast.

Other than regular rewatchings of I Think You Should Leave, my favorite screen obsession of late has been The Bear. Season one was good, and really grabbed me, but season two made me care for those characters. I hate when people say that, because it always sounds a little hokey, but I was a mess during every episode. Just killer art.

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What’s your most wanted client or project?

I don’t have any specific client or project on my bucket list. But over the years, I’ve always found myself attracted to companies that have a chill, creator-focused kinda vibe. Whether that’s an alt-weekly newspaper or an editorial website for beer or a marketing platform or a company I work with called Tip Top Proper Cocktails, I’m always at my best and most comfortable when the people in charge care about making a good, weird, fun brand.

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What do you wish more people knew about copywriting?

Writing is funny. Some people respect the hell out of it, know that it’s not in their skillset, and happily pay for people like us to do it. That’s great. But there’s a lot of people who think it’s easy, quick, and doesn't require much effort. You run into these people sometimes at businesses. Right now, a lot of these folks are pushing AI really hard, thinking they can replace humans with paragraphs of garbage. I’m not sure what to do with that, but it’s a bummer. I guess I wish that those people respected the craft more. But I also think as long as we strive for personality and voice and being just a little bit weirder than the others, there will always be a job to do.

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Where can The Subtext readers keep up with you?

https://tinyletter.com/georgiabrewsletter
https://austinlouisray.com/
https://twitter.com/austinlouisray

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Last call - anything that you'd like to add?

Find a way to write things that you love. It can be hard sometimes, and it might require you to write some things that you don't care about in order to get money to pay your bills. That's fine, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But make time for the shit that really moves you, even if it's just something you put in a Google Doc and look at from time to time. There's value in making art. We should all make more art.