Lux Alptraum, 33, and Leigh Stein, 31, writers
“I make a lot of friends on the Internet,” says poet and novelist Leigh Stein, whose novel, The Fallback Plan (based on her experience of repeatedly moving back home with her parents as an adult), epitomized the plight of the boomerang generation. “That’s where I’ve always met people who are like me.” In 2014, smitten with a secret Facebook group for women and gender-nonconforming writers to be the cochair of BinderCon—named after the Mitt Romney meme—where Stein posted the idea to start a conference. Lux Alptraum, a Lower East Side resident, was the first person to chime in and suggest practical steps to starting a conference, such as forming committees and instituting a hierarchy. Alptraum adds, “I was like, Okay, either I’m going to get told to fuck off, or I’m going to get asked to spearhead some stuff.” Stein then invited Alptraum, the former CEO of the sex and tech website Fleshbot (and a founding member of Gotham Girls Roller Derby), to be the cochair of BinderCon, the first of which was attended by 540 women last year, following a $55,000 Kickstarter campaign. Together, Stein and Alptraum have established three conferences plus a new weekly podcast, and next summer, Stein will publish her third book, a memoir called Land of Enchantment. “Leigh inspires me,” says Alptraum, as does her own mother, a university president who was kicked out of graduate school in the ’60s for having a child. “I really like people who are just not afraid to push past ‘No.’”