The Stranger is known for shaking things up with its pointed takes on local stories, but this summer, the paper made history for shaking things up on the inside. Hannah Murphy Winter started their new job as The Stranger's editor-in-chief, becoming the first Nonbinary person to hold the role.

"I'm under the impression that I'm the first Queer, Genderqueer, 'them-ish' person in this role," they said in an interview with SGN.

Winter feels at home working at a publication whose roots lie deeply entangled in Queer culture. "It's awesome. I have always worked at places that have a robust history and lineage, a robust institutional memory, and a lot of those places have also been very counterculture and very progressive, but this is the first one where queerness has felt like such a part of that thread. That's special."

Before working at The Stranger , Winter was a freelance writer for Rolling Stone, a news assistant at the New York Times international desk, and an intern and freelance writer for The Nation. Although they have built their career working for progressive institutions, they have never experienced anything like the Queer culture that lingers in the air at The Stranger , influencing the tongue-in-cheek paper like a sassy ghost.

"You feel the history of queerness in this space and in this role," Winter explained. "I think there are few [such] positions of leadership in this industry, especially in a space that isn't a Queer publication. You should feel that if you're leading The Advocate, but it feels uniquely special to be in this role and feel this Queer history and this Queer lineage in it."

Self-discovery
Winter knew they were a journalist long before they knew they were Queer. They moved across the country to study journalism and sociology at NYU at 17 years old. "I loved the craft of journalism, but when I was 17, I don't think I understood the work we do. I just think I got lucky that I had a good guess that this was going to be something I love," they said.

In their mid-twenties, Winter experienced a quarter-life crisis. They left the New York news desk behind in a search for self-discovery in Mexico. "I figured out I was Gay [and] had a somewhat existential panic," Winter said. "I was going through a breakup, which makes a lot of sense knowing the context that I was Gay, and I ran away to Mexico for six months."

Like many young Queer people, Winter needed time to process their identity and found comfort in the distance and space Mexico provided. "The first time I said that I was Gay was in Spanish, not in English, which did make it a little easier," they said with a laugh.

Changes
After their sojourn, they returned to New York to write for Rolling Stone. Now, Winter is back in their hometown and ready to incorporate the lessons they learned into "Seattle's Only Newspaper" as it undergoes a modern puberty.

"We're kind of just starting to come back into the office, which has been fun," they said. "Right now, our team isn't huge. Our editorial team is as small as it looks on the masthead, but there's so much energy in this building."

Under Winter's leadership, the team is growing. The Stranger brought in an all-star list of columnists to contribute fresh perspectives. "The idea is to bring consistent, more diverse voices into the paper. Some of them will be more political commentary, but some are arts, culture, and food," Winter said. "I'm excited about that. I think it will help us. Everything is under the banner of The Stranger and The Stranger's tone, but expanding the tent of what The Stranger is an amazing thing."

Inspired by their work with Rolling Stone, Winter will also bring in more photographers to brighten up the paper. "Half of our mission is a culture paper, and being able to document that is something we are entirely capable of doing," they said. "We want to be a paper that people are excited about."

Back to print
While the pandemic hit The Stranger hard, Winter is helping bring back more print issues. Their projected goal for 2025 is 11 physical issues a year. "I think there is starting to be a little more of a romanticization of holding a physical paper again," Winter said.

The Stranger has crept its way back onto the streets of Seattle over the last two and half years with print issues - the latest is a guide to the local primary elections. Winters hopes monthly physical copies will help satisfy Seattle's hunger for analog news, as many dedicated readers still don't know the paper has returned to print.

Another change under Winter's reign is allocating more resources toward their "deep love" - thorough features. "Starting in October, we should be able to publish one good deep feature a week," Winter said. These pieces will include "a lot of visual investment and a lot of deep reporting." Readers can expect these in-depth features spread throughout the paper, not just in politics.

Humor
One thing that won't change is The Stranger's propensity for humor. "I think [humor] is a tool that can be wielded to enter subjects that can be impossible to broach or to pull something off a pedestal that has been unfairly put on a pedestal. If we can use it for that, we're doing our job right, and if we can make you laugh, we're doing our job right. Both of those things are our job," Winter said, although they also admitted sometimes humor is just for giggles. "Some things are just fun to read, and that's good, that's okay. Our readers shouldn't always be walloped over the head with a policy argument. Sometimes we can just be fun and silly."

Winter doesn't take themself too seriously, which bodes well for their new position. "In my personal life, my wife and I virtually don't speak English in our house. We have this series of in-jokes that create the fabric of our household, and they become so dense that I don't think we even speak an intelligible language," they said with a smile.

The Stranger, which has quickly become Winter's second home, tends to also revel in cheeky humor, though the writers still take incredible pride in their work, which is one of the rea-sons Winter is so excited to lead the team.

"There's so much pride in The Stranger in owning your beat and knowing it well. Being able to have that pride while still [poking] fun at it requires such a unique personality- You have to be able to take your work seriously without taking yourself too seriously," they said. "It's a cool balance of people here, and that crosses outside of editorial. It's in the DNA of this place. It's been fun."

Winter sees journalism as a team sport. "It's best when we're working on it together. Being able to get into the work with everybody has been a cool experience," they said.