Welcome to the Inkwell, the new blogging spot of the Independent Women’s Forum. Your daily inkspots, or co-bloggers, will be The Two Charlottes–my colleague Charlotte Allen, one of Washington’s feistier opinion-mongers, and me. I’m Charlotte Hays, a recovering gossip columnist (the Washington Times, the New York Observer, and the New York Daily News) who’s written for an eclectic bunch of magazines that ranges from Town & Country to National Review. I joined the IWF in March 1999 as editor of the old Women’s Quarterly. When we decided we could reach more people by going online, our President & CEO Nancy Pfotenhauer tapped me to be the official blogger.


The Other Charlotte, as you may know, has written for the Atlantic, the Weekly Standard, and contributes regularly to the Los Angeles Times. Her fans are legion. When Michael Dirda, the wonderful Washington Post bookman, was assembling the fantasy dream team for his ideal magazine, he listed TOC as a writer he’d want. High praise, indeed.


But Inkwell won’t be just two Charlottes blogging away–it will have other features. We’ll have guest bloggers from time to time, and we’re also excited about our Monthly MoDo Watch, wherein Cathy Seipp will keep an eye on the work of the most annoying columnist in America, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. We’re happy to have Cathy, who profiled Dowd in a hilarious piece in the Washingtonian magazine, and we hope that constant readings of MoDo won’t send Cathy shrieking to the loony bin.


We also want you to get into the act–there’s a letters column. Let us know what you think.