Editorial intern Tulip Larson ’25 talks to former NER intern and current writer/designer Zach F. Howe ’11 about mass-transit maps, artistic inspiration, and transitioning from college to the professional world.
Tulip Larson: Where are you now, geographically and professionally?
Zach F. Howe: I’ve lived in Philly for the past eight years. I work remotely as a freelance medical writer for a pharma marketing company. I started out in professional writing as a copy editor and fact-checker, and fell into this role after. In addition to learning so much about how to be an effective, trustworthy member of a well-functioning team, this job has given me the stability and flexibility to develop my artistic and intellectual interests without the need to monetize them, which I’m so grateful for.
TL: When you graduated from Middlebury in 2011, did you know you wanted to be a designer and writer? What steps have you taken between then and now?
ZFH: I was totally lost when I graduated because school was all I knew. I promptly took first-year Chinese at the summer language school, went to China, came back, and took the LSAT just so I could study for something. I moved to New York to be with my friends and got a social work job because I was curious about going into urban planning, but I didn’t like it. I did some pretty wild stuff for a few years, and learned a lot about community organizing through my work with groups like the Red Umbrella Project. Then I got that copy editing job, helped organize a union, and then was laid off and got this job. I’m still drawn to organizing stuff. I work with Philly Bike Action and have organized little ad hoc political things with friends as well. The design stuff didn’t start until a couple years ago, when I just couldn’t suppress my lifelong fascination with transit diagrams anymore and needed to frantically teach myself how to make them. I also finally had a house of my own I could decorate, which really accelerated my lifelong interest in interior design as well.
TL: What drew you to working with mass transit design in particular?
ZFH: I go into some sort of fugue state when I look at a subway diagram, same with a floor plan. I could just look at them forever, and it’s always been that way. Then my car got totaled and I realized that even though I didn’t use my car that often, not having one totally transformed how I saw the world. I started to understand that cars privatize the costs and risks of travel, and this was the result of a series of policy choices starting in the thirties that systematically destroyed access to affordable, reliable mass transit all across the country. Private vehicle dependency is one of those things that once you start seeing, you can’t unsee. Mass transit is a form of freedom, and I think good design can make this freedom feel attractive, accessible, and useful to people in ways that surprise them.
TL: You’ve designed a lot of pretty cool public transit maps for the DC metro and the NJ rail system. Do you have a favorite one?
ZFH: Thank you! My favorite is definitely the DC one because it combines 5 different agencies’ services into one map, so people can see how this giant rail system fits together and can be used cohesively—something you’d have to piece together for yourself from five diagrams plus Google Maps to understand otherwise. The official DC metro map itself is just such a gorgeous piece of design, and it inspired me to try to make something worthy of the original. I also enjoy the simpler stuff I do on my Instagram account @ITookATrainHere, where I use maps and visuals to help people see how they can access nature and other surprising spots without a car.
TL: You also are quite a skilled artist and interior designer. Where do you draw inspiration from?
ZFH: Again, thanks so much for the kind words. I grew up decorating and arranging furniture and outfits with my mom and grandma. It’s a bit of a family fascination and I just took to it. Then I started taking art classes at a community art school in Philly called Fleisher, and realized my obsession with diagrams and maps was really an obsession with lines and colors and shapes. I’ll make freehand patterns or do something I call “rule-based doodling” where I start drawing a design and discovering the parameters of the design as I go (e.g. this color line can’t cross this one, no sharp corners, etc). I get so much pleasure out of arranging things, I could just do it forever.
TL: What’s next for you design-wise? Any exciting new projects on the horizon?
ZFH: I’ve just applied to graduate school for spatial data analytics and visualization, essentially compiling, analyzing, and presenting geographic information. The goal is to learn programming languages and visualization strategies that allow me to make more informative and persuasive maps and diagrams. This should not only set me up for paid work I find fulfilling and useful but also expand my artistic practice with a whole new way to make and manipulate shapes and lines.
TL: Any highlights from your time as a New England Review intern?
ZFH: It was my first time being treated as an adult, not just a student of literature. It was empowering to get to go to a special office and talk with Carolyn about literature and feel that our opinion had real meaning. It was also my first regular exposure to reading and evaluating literature that wasn’t already deemed excellent. I got to decide for myself how excellent a submission was and learn from an expert how to use analytical tools for my own benefit.
TL: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your Middlebury self?
ZFH: You’re perfect, and we got this. Let it rip.
TL: What do you read for pleasure? Have you read anything good lately?
ZFH: I’m in a couple book clubs right now. I just read Maurice for one, E. M. Forster’s beautiful gay novel that he couldn’t safely publish in his lifetime. For the other I’m reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, about the economic and political forces we all feel making it harder and harder to do, think, or communicate anything without a billionaire getting richer because we had to do it through his digital platform.
TL: Is there anything else you would like to share?
ZFH: The transition from being a high-achieving student to a fulfilled adult was extremely rocky for me. Once I could no longer derive my sense of self from my grades, I participated in increasingly unsafe relationships looking for that same sense of control and purpose. I don’t have to do that anymore, and I’m happy to share my experience with anyone who is worried or struggling.