Louisa Kamps

Oprah Daily • 31st January 2023

Why a Daily Dose of Awe Might Just Be the New Prozac

On a family trip to San Francisco last spring, I was delighted to find that a survey of paintings by Alice Neel—the late, great portraitist of ordinary people—was showing at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.... I expected to be engaged by Neel’s beautiful loose lines and off-kilter compositions. I did not anticipate, though, the full-on electric soul-charge I experienced in those gallery rooms.

Martha Stewart • 1st April 2022

Four Expert-Approved Ways to Strengthen Your Core

The gold standard for a fit midsection is no longer a six-pack or cinched waist. It's a balance of inner strength and all-around stability that, yes, makes you look lean--but more important, helps you move freely and avoid injury for years to come.

Martha Stewart • 20th September 2021

Here's How Several Women Over 40 Discovered New Passions and Hobbies

We're not sure about old dogs and new tricks, but for humans of a certain age, the science is clear: Being an absolute beginner is an absolutely great way to stay sharp and strong. Learn from eight women who mastered new skills in their 40s and beyond, and warm up for your next act.

Martha Stewart • 1st September 2020

Step Outside: Experts Say That Walking Has Many of the Same Benefits as Running

It turns out there's no need for speed. A long, head-clearing walk brings many of the same benefits—to body, mind, and spirit—as a jog or even a sprint. Lean into this low-impact, all-ages exercise, and unlock the upsides of hitting your stride.

Family Circle • 1st September 2019

Back to School Advice for Parents

Your kid is starting high school or—swallow hard—college. Experts share their advice on helping them crush (or at least survive) the frosh challenges. Here’s the ultimate freshman orientation (for parents).

1st May 2019

Mother's Day Essay: Confessions of a Hypocrite Mom

Mother's Day Essays: Whatever kind of mom you are—and whatever kind of mom you had—we see you, and we're celebrating. This is one of 11 essays in the series.

Shondaland • 1st April 2019

True Confessions: The Secrets Only a Therapist Would Know

Author and therapist Lori Gottlieb pulls back the curtain on what people really say when they're "on the couch."

Martha Stewart • 7th January 2019

7 Reasons to Try Resistance Training in 2019

A smart, doable routine can give your body and brain a real lift.

Martha Stewart • 21st August 2018

How Sitting All Day Is Damaging Your Body and What To Do

A twinge between the shoulder blades, a knot above your hip. The culprit is often something we do every day: sit, and sit, and sit some more. Here's how to shift your habits to support the muscles that protect your spine—and prevent future pain, too.

Good Housekeeping • 17th May 2018

Raising Resilient Kids

Simple strategies to help your child weather life's rainy days and tough times.

Elle • 1st January 2018

You're Not All That

In a world where navel-gazing is almost a cliche, psychiatrist Mark Epstein proposes a new, very old way: Curb your ego

Martha Stewart • 26th June 2017

The Summer Effect

These loose, laid-back days have a quiet superpower: They naturally kick-start the healthy habits that will help you feel stronger, fitter, and sharper year-round. Go ahead and play like a kid, and be a regular at the farmers' market—it's the easiest time of the year to become your best self.

Elle • 1st March 2017

Could a Club Drug Be the Secret to Curing PTSD?

The groundbreaking, remarkably effective, and more-than-a-little-trippy new treatment for severe trauma.

Martha Stewart • 1st February 2017

Show Yourself Some Love: The Surprising Power of Self-Compassion

Scientists have discovered an amazingly simple way to get through tough times, deepen relationships, and feel happier every day: Try a little tenderness—toward yourself.

Elle • 4th January 2017

The Art of the Apology: Is Saying "Sorry" Ever Really Enough?

Sorry is the hardest word, but it may be the most useful one, especially in this era of acute political polarization and loose talk of violent retaliation. Psychologist Harriet Lerner schools Louisa Kamps in the art of the apology

Elle • 2nd January 2017

Is Divorce Contagious?

Science suggests that divorce can spread from couple to couple to couple, from neighborhood to neighborhood. Louisa Kamps explores a new therapy to help people combat the contagion and learn how to cope with their own misgivings about marriage

ELLE • 8th January 2016

I'm Quilting to Save My Sanity

Want to improve your memory, concentration, and creativity? New studies show that New Age brain-training apps can't hold a candle to one old-timey hobby: quilting.

Elle • 6th March 2015

7 Commandments for Disconnecting From Your Device

Are you reading this on your phone? According to our analytics, there's a 50% chance that you are.

Real Simple • 1st November 2014

Why Gratitude is Great

Count your blessings. Say "thank you." Consider yourself lucky. They're directives our parents gave us so we would grow into decent people with decent manners. It turns out, the same advice helps make our brains and bodies healthier, too.

ELLE • 1st July 2013

How to Love Your Work

Social scientist Eve Ekman sheds light on how to make good work relationships great and bad ones better.

Elle • 1st December 2016

The 6 Most Prized Pieces in Sharon Coplan Hurowitz's Closet

Who says it's wrong to love the things we wear—like, really love them? Presenting five women whose curatorial focus—devoted to everything from tiny, tough wearable sculptures to light-as-air lace blouses—lends powerful individuality to their personal style.

Elle • 1st December 2016

The Woman Who Can Find the $3 Yves Saint Laurent Skirt

No stranger to challenging designs, fashion-world fixture Cecilia Dean has worn, arrestingly, everything from a giant white sail-shaped Philip Treacy hat that gave the appearance of a small Calatrava perched atop her head, to one of Commes des Garçons' iconic "bump" dresses, with small, pillowy nodes lumped irregularly across its backside.

Elle • 16th August 2016

The Life-Changing Magic of a Beauty Transformation

Whether it's by trying a new lipstick or undergoing a major overhaul, there's nothing like tweaking one's appearance to open new horizons—both in body and mind. This month, we celebrate beauty transformations great and small: those that bring us closer to who we want to be, and those that simply deliver a (very worthwhile) flash of joy

Elle • 9th July 2016

Foreign Service

Hopscotching across cultures and countries, Louisa Kamps found a novel way to connect: by putting herself—and her hair—in the hands of strangers

Elle • 9th June 2015

The Nostalgic—and Liberating— Power of Makeup

From a punk-rock eyeliner to an editor- approved pressed powder, Louisa Kamps' beauty talismans infuse her future with power from her past.

Elle • 28th February 2011

The Rebirth

When Louisa Kamps decamped from America's fashion capital to the bucolic setting of her childhood, she shelved her well-curated wardrobe for the uniform of her milieu—roomy, anonymous, sexless. But this season, she's back. She's so back.

ELLE • 1st September 2006

Supersize Me

Tall and curvy, Louisa Kamps always thought her clothes had to be short and tight to fight--or flaunt--her shape. But that was before she tried on this season's remarkable new oversize styles.

Letters & Science • 21st March 2020

Africa Writ Large | College of Letters & Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Once you start clicking through Brittle Paper, the sprawling digital magazine Ainehi Edoro created to chronicle African literature and literary culture, it’s hard to stop. One link takes you to a blurb covering the Oxford English Dictionary’s recent inclusion of 29 Nigerian words, the next to a hefty profile of a globally influential British-Zimbabwean fiction editor who’s opening doors for many writers from Africa and the African diaspora.

Shondaland • 23rd April 2019

Melinda Gates' Next Mission: Making Life Better for Women

In her new book, "Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World," Gates details how fear and resistance proved to be "a painful step on the way to a deeper commitment."

Elle • 13th January 2017

A Hygge Skeptic Is Won Over

Just when we need it most, a bevy of books extolling the Danish mantra of camaraderie and coziness, in a Scandinavian-chic package, hits our shores.

Elle • 16th September 2009

The Magician of Madison

Lorrie Moore on Life, Love, and Her First New Book in 11 Years.

Elle • 9th November 2017

The New Yorker Editor Who Had My Back

By the time I arrived in New York at 24, I was already a weary veteran of what social psychologists call “identity work”—the burdens women shoulder to navigate workplaces too often rife with sexual objectification and harassment.

Elle • 1st September 2017

The Sweet Spell of Success

Let's admit it: We're obsessed with the S-word. Louisa Kamps follows our evolving relationship with it, plus how we track and define it.

Elle • 16th May 2016

Power, You Have It

Now here's how to use it. A new book by psychologist Dacher Keltner illuminates ways women can hone their innate advantages—and avoid the pitfalls—on all the playing fields.

Elle • 23rd January 2016

Fun At Work

Two new books argue for an Organization Woman 2.0: one who knows the value of friendship in the office

Elle • 2nd May 2015

The Sneaky Upside of Stress

We tend to think that stress can only rush us to early grave. But there's good and growing evidence that stress can be really, really good for us—fueling productivity, enhancing our relationships, even improving our health—if we learn to think about it differently.

ELLE • 25th March 2015

Aggressive or Assertive? Bitchy or Blunt? Three women on overcoming sexist feedback feedback at work--and rising up through the ranks.

Pro tips on dodging, overcoming, and untangling the garbled messages (spoken and unspoken) of old-school workplace sexism with ingenuity, determination, and truly intelligent coaching.

Elle • 1st January 2014

The Big Turn-On

Feeling dull? Logy? Uninspired? A band of psychologists, neuroscientists, and business gurus have a raft of new techniques to help you tap into your creativity.

Elle • 5th November 2013

Defusing the A-Bomb

What do do when faced with today's pandemic of bad behavior by the no-Golden-Rule-for-me-thanks zombie horde? Louisa Kamps ponders her temptation to liberally apply the A-word—and gives herself a time out.

ELLE • 1st January 2010

Just Hit Refresh: How to Keep Your Head on Straight

Our writer discovered that a lot of her time-saving desires were sucking up all of her...time. So she detoxed and saw her creativity—and output—rise.

ELLE • 18th August 2008

End The Spend

The first step to financial recovery, Louisa Kamps learns, is cluing in to our boneheaded behaviors.

Elle • 1st April 2007

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Why do some people get ahead while others are perpetually stuck at the bottom? Louisa Kamps investigates ambition—where it really comes from, why it can be hard to maintain, and how to get some of that mojo back.

Food & Wine • 11th May 2018

Broomball: A Wintry-White Dinner

As a defiant fist shake to the bitter Midwestern winter—with its short days and limited pantry—chef Tory Miller and the staff at Madison, Wisconsin's L'Etoile follow an entertainingly dorky afternoon of broomball with a brilliant dinner featuring local winter-white ingredients.

momfilter • 15th February 2012

First Family Trip to Europe

How retracing a trip I took as a child with my own son brought me back, beautifully.

Food & Wine • 1st August 2003

Life of Pie

On a Midwestern road trip, a writer zigzags from one small-town cafe to another in search of spectacular pie. Here she extols her favorite discoveries and the bakers behind them—some sweet as peaches, others tart as rhubarb.

Food & Wine • 1st April 2002

Drinks: Milwaukee Untapped

With cracked vinyl, plastic flowers and the occasional polka band, Milwaukee's best bars are tiny strongholds of authenticity in a world full of imitation.

The New York Times Magazine • 17th October 2004

Cheese Curds

When I moved back to Wisconsin, my home state, two years ago, I couldn't help saluting the first huge sign I saw, just over the Illinois-Wisconsin border, for cheese curds—those squiggly, squeaky chunks of young cheddar we learn to love early here in America's Dairyland. Right along the Interstate to Milwaukee, there's a cluster of cheese-curd, porn and firecracker stores that has always made me wonder about the guy who would indulge in all three; but driving a distance to score curds alone—well, that makes sense to almost any Wisconsinite.