Elizabeth Spiers opinion writer, digital strategist, co-host of Slate Money

Elizabeth Spiers

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Latest — 17 Feb 2026

On the Epstein Files and Oligarchs with Room Temperature IQs

One of my ongoing frustrations of our culture's veneration of capitalistic success is that it causes people to ascribe positive qualities to rich people that they may or may not have--intelligence and competence, in particular. I wrote about evidence of this in the Epstein files for The Nation,

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Spring Workshop Schedule

I've added some new dates for opinion writing, personal essay, and creative/writing practice workshops. The schedule is below, and I hope to see you in one of them! WINTER/SPRING 2026 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION OPINION WRITING Opinion Writing | Tuesday, February 10, 2026 | 3:00 pm -

Melania: The Movie Review

Doing it for JournalismTM Some brave journalists go to war zones and get shot at. I went to the Melania "documentary" for The Nation. Here's the column: Melania at the Multiplex Packaging a $75 million bribe from Jeff Bezos as a vapid, content-challenged biopic. by Elizabeth

Eating the Chess Pieces

This is not about "Spheres of Influence" Pundits and talking heads who insinuate that what Trump just did in Venezuela (or what he wants to do in Greenland or Nicaragua or Cuba) is part of some larger coherent foreign policy strategy as if he and his toadies are

Bari Bari, Quite Contrary

Why Must She Stoop So Low? [Ed. note: Almost went with "why does your network blow?" but no one under the age of 40 uses "blow" in that sense anymore.] Happy New Year! We have somehow made it to 2026 without being annihilated in a nuclear

A Hallmark Christmas, Through the Dark Lens of the Trump Economy

A lump of coal from President Scrooge [The NYT assigned me a column about Christmas and affordability in the Trump economy but also assigned approximately four million other columns for the holidays and so mine didn't make it in. But here it is, 🚨EXCLUSIVELY🚨 on ElizabethSpiers.com, lol.

2025 Spiers Gift Guide Extravaganza!

I might as well, right? I taught my second creative practice workshop yesterday and think it went really well. I recommended a lot of the tools and strategies that I use myself, including a lot of physical objects that would make good gifts. So at the risk of cliché, here’

Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out, Andrew Cuomo

I wrote about the end of Cuomo-ism for The New York Times. Here's the column: Back on Aug. 8, at 5:40 p.m., the retirement-aged nepo baby and disgraced former governor of New York tweeted at the much younger man who had soundly beaten him in June

What Does Zohran Mean for Hollywood?

Come for discussion of tax credits and labor issues; stay for snark about Jon Voight. The Ankler asked me to write an opinion column about what a Zohran Mamdani win might mean for Hollywood. Here's a partial excerpt of the column: Near my house in Brooklyn is the

Donald Trump's $300 Million Playpen

Trump can find money for a vanity project, but not for SNAP recipients [Note: I actually filed this for the NYT ten days ago but it sort of lingered in the workflow and by the end of the week, they deemed it something that had already been written about too