Written by

Renata Kowalczyk

Culture & Business Writer

Renata Kowalczyk started out reviewing restaurants and covering neighborhood arts scenes for an alt-weekly, which taught her to notice cultural shifts long before they showed up in national coverage. She later moved into business journalism, covering retail and consumer trends for a regional business publication, before joining The Spectrum Post to write at the intersection of the two beats. Her stories tend to start with a small, specific observation — a store closing, a subculture growing online, a spending habit showing up in her own group chat — and work outward to the larger pattern. She's especially interested in stories where a cultural trend and an economic one turn out to be the same story told from two angles.

  • Former staff writer, regional business weekly (6 years)
  • B.A. in Journalism, State University
  • Contributor, industry retail trends roundtable

11+ years of experience

  • A weekly calendar with the fifth workday crossed out, symbolizing the shift to a four-day workweek

    Feature

    Inside the Slow, Uneven Rise of the Four-Day Workweek

    It's no longer just a pilot program at a handful of startups. A growing number of mid-sized companies are making the switch permanent — and the reasons are more complicated than "better work-life balance."

    Renata Kowalczyk 3 min read