Sasha Cagen is an author, essayist, and entrepreneur who builds commmunities around new ideas. She is most well known for coining the term “quirkyalone,” a person who prefers singledom to dating for the sake of being in a couple. She is the author of Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics (Harper One, 2004) and To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

Sasha’s work as a writer and community-builder has been featured by more than 100 national outlets, including Anderson Cooper, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time, and USA Today.

Her essays have appeared in the Village Voice, Utne, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 x 7, and numerous anthologies, including A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World (St. Martin’s), The Factsheet Five Zine Reader (Simon and Schuster), ReGeneration: Telling Stories from our Twenties (Putnam), and Before the Mortgage: True Stories about First Loves, First Jobs, and the Perplexing Pursuit of Adulthood (Simon Spotlight).

Before the web sucked all of us into digital media, Sasha expressed her love for print magazines by publishing To-Do List, a print magazine that used the idea of a to-do list to explore details of modern life. Among other major recognition, To-Do List was named Best New Magazine of 2000 in Utne’s Alternative Press Awards, Reader’s Choice. She continued the project on todolistblog.com, a blog that publishes handwritten lists.

In addition to her work as a writer and web publisher, Sasha works in social media as a grassroots marketer and product manager. She’s created three user-driven sites: quirkyalone.net, todolistblog.com, and StyleMob.com, a street fashion network where she was a co-founder and served as Chief Marketing Officer. StyleMob was recently acquired by Glam Media in 2007. Sasha currently works for Glam on Tinker, a website that helps people promote themselves and their events and discover what people are talking about on Twitter.

Sasha is the creator of International Quirkyalone Day (Feb. 14), a growing alternative to Valentine’s Day that celebrates all forms of love, that has grown into a celebration spanning more than 40 cities.

Sasha is an experienced speaker who has spoken on a variety of topics to many different audiences, from engineers and business people to students and retirees, at a range of venues, including the Grace Cathedral, Boston College, Google, Adaptive Path, the Omega Institute, Hollyhock, the Conference of World Affairs at Colorado University, Boulder, Sonoma State University, University of San Francisco, the Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing, and a host of others.

She has led workshops at two of North America’s leading retreat centers: Hollyhock, in Canada, and Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, New York.

Sasha consults to startups and established companies on marketing and branding and to individuals who are selling books or other products.

Sasha attended Amherst College and graduated from Barnard College. A native of Rhode Island, she lives in San Francisco.

Sasha asks you not to call her “the quirkyalone” in public. Like all quirkyalones, she is so much more.

Sasha Cagen on Twitter
Sasha Cagen on LinkedIn
Sasha Cagen on Huffington Post
Sasha Cagen at Authors@Google
Sasha Cagen on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Sasha Cagen on Anderson Cooper