About our host

Julia Bainbridge is a James Beard Award-nominated writer. Formerly an editor at Bon Appétit, Yahoo, and Atlanta magazine, she has also worked at Condé Nast Traveler and Food & Wine, and her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, Paper, and Food52, where she was the online publication’s first writer in residence.

Because of her work on The Lonely Hour, Julia has been invited to speak on Sirius XM's "The Deep Dive With Carmen Rita Wong,” Bustle’s “The Chat Room,” and more. 

Why loneliness?

A discussion about loneliness is important now more than ever, as social disconnection is on the rise. We've embraced a culture of individualism; more of us are living (and aging) alone than ever; much of our built environment contains negative or exclusive social infrastructure (socially-minded design matters!); traditional sources of social solidarity like labor unions and civic associations are in decline; and social media is "increasing loneliness and envy," according to psychologists at the University of Pittsburgh.

No one else is fostering this conversation the way The Lonely Hour does: The show aims to neutralize the taboo by treating loneliness as part of the mixed bag of emotions involved in the human experience.