Freelance writers are nervous by nature. There’s so much that has to go right for us to make money. Editors have to like our pitches and manuscripts. Articles have to run. Accounting departments have to issue us checks and checks have to clear. When the economy goes south, we worry even more than usual, especially […]
High school confidential: journalism's changing, but jobs are still out there
High school girls still dream of being Rory Gilmore, the fictional daughter in The Gilmore Girls TV show who headed straight from a Yale journalism degree to a job covering Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. That’s what I discovered at career day at my old high school last week. More than 80 girls from St. Mary’s […]
Introducing RecessionWire.com, The Upside of the Downturn
What do two Internet savvy New York City business magazine editors and a long-time freelance writer do when their steady gigs go south? Start a Website of course. The site’s called RecessionWire.com, The Upside of the Downturn, and it’s just as smart as the three women behind it. Co-founders Laura Rich and Sara Clemence were […]
If you're upgrading your writing career, j-school isn't the answer
Twice in the last week I’ve encountered writers or bloggers who’ve run into a bad patch in their careers and are wondering if it makes sense to go back to school and get a master’s degree in journalism. Bottom line: you don’t need a degree to get work as a writer. Even if you have […]
You can still be a reporter, just not in a newsroom
Attention journalists. The newspaper reporting and editing jobs you’ve been laid off from aren’t coming back anytime soon, at least not in the form you left them. You probably already know that. So what’s next? You could go to law school, switch to PR or dig up dirt on public companies for a corporate investigator. But if […]
My freelance writing resolutions for 2009
I am behind. I am still working on a story that I wanted to get done by Dec. 31 so I could bill for it during 2008. I am writing this blog post at 8:50 a.m. when I’d originally intended to pre-write and post it by 5 a.m. The Christmas trees (yes, plural, we go […]