Mitra Wicks is the Editor in Chief of 7 Star Life, one of London’s leading travel and luxury lifestyle magazines celebrating the divine, the inimitable and the unashamedly decadent.
You would have thought that would be enough for Mitra, no, she’s also the Event Director of LEZevents which host a range of fabulous queer parties. We spoke to Mitra to find out, how to steal both her jobs!
Name: Mitra Wicks
Job title: Editor in Chief and Events Director
Company: 7 Star Life and LEZevents
What does your job role entail?
Running a luxury lifestyle magazine called 7 Star Life and an events company aimed at lesbian and bisexual women in London.
Describe your working day or week?
My job involves waking up at 8 am every day, scanning through numerous emails from PR’s offering various press trips, products for review and event invitations. I also get many emails from PR’s chasing me about past dinners in restaurants/stays in hotels which I am supposed to review, so I tend to write these up asap! I also liaise with various venues where I plan to host my events (LGBTQ+ parties) as well as dancers, DJs and vocal performers. I host events once a month but there is a lot of work to do in the run up to these parties, including social media advertising campaigns, setting up event ticket links, editorial features promoting the events and even trips to bars in the West End to promote my events to the people themselves. I also try and spend two hours of the day writing up an outstanding article for 7 Star Life. I have to resize images and upload these to compliment the feature – which can all end up taking a great amount of time – particularly when WordPress frustratingly decides to play up or my internet connection decides to die on me randomly. The perks of my day are usually at the end where I often go out for a complementary dinner at restaurants I plan to write about. I may also go to a press event I have been invited to. This could be a restaurant or club launch party or a demonstration event in a luxury London beauty clinic. The hardest part of my evening is trying my best to resist the temptations of the free alcohol usually on offer at such events. An open bar on a weeknight is a journalist’s biggest vice!
Which key skills do you need to do your job?
Discipline, patience, being well organised, focused, resilient, good writing skills and being good at negotiating (aka blagging).
What made you decide to go for this job role?
To be honest, I have just always been a pleasure seeker so having my own luxury lifestyle magazine was just a way of ensuring I live my best possible life. It’s hard to make a lot of money with magazines, so most of the “payment” comes from luxury experiences that help enhance my life such as 5 star hotel stays, expensive beauty treatments, products and Michelin starred restaurant dinners. I started LEZevents because after I discovered I was bisexual in my early 30’s, I decided there should be more fabulous queer female events in the capital so I used my luxury lifestyle magazine connections to help me create glamorous parties for the females and non-binary members of the LGBTQ+ community in chic spaces. Plus, if you play your cards right you can make serious monies.
The best part of your job?
Being able to treat my loved ones to exciting experiences. Eating out in expensive restaurants, being lucky enough to stay in luxury hotels in the UK and all over the world, sampling the latest beauty products, trying high end beauty treatments – all for free!
The worst part of your job?
It’s not really all for free because when the glamour of the press trip has died down and you have digested your 10 course tasting menu with paired fine wines, you are left with a bloated tummy and a thousands of words to type up on your laptop whilst trying your best to detox with green juices in a desperate attempt to heal your long suffering liver.
If I’m choosing a course to study, what type of course suits this job best?
I studied Media Studies for A Level and English Literature at university and I really feel these courses helped me. Anything which helps perfect your writing is the most important, because a lot of people want to be journalists and live the high life, yet their writing is slightly painful to read.
Does work experience really help you to get the dream job?
Yes. It’s important to work in environments you want to permanently be in order to know how to succeed. It’s also important to work in environments and industries you can’t stand either, so you know what you really want to do (and don’t want to do). I spent many years working as a PA where I had to endure constant inappropriate comments from sleazy senior directors, and once worked as an intern for a PR company where I felt like my soul was slowly dying every day. After weeks of being treated worse than the company dog, being forced to eat unappetising beige food in a dingy staff room whilst journalists dined on the finest cuisine, and filling 100’s of goody bags till my hands ached, I realised I needed to be on the other side of the fence and make it as journalist. Maybe I’m just a shameless work snob and a frivolous life-lover. But, I really do believe you should work to live not live to work, as cheesy as that sounds.
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