Friday, June 20, 2008

quoted on Media Bistro

Sometimes I really laugh at my life.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I was interviewed for an article on the popular media/publishing industry website MediaBistro.com discussing arts criticism and breaking into the freelance market. At the time, and now, I found it really amusing mostly because I am NO expert on this, as I'm still a newbie (relatively speaking considering the typical mediabistro reader) to the field. I was honored to be included, but now that the article is out I'm still laughing - I'm quoted next to writers from The Boston Globe and The Village Voice. I WISH I were as important as them, haha.

The full article is available here on MediaBistro.com, but only if you're a paid member (if you are, go to content and then 'what to charge'). I shouldn't copy the entire thing here, but below is an excerpt where she quotes me, for your amusement:
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Staying close to her own expertise has benefited Taylor Gordon, a dancer and freelance writer who transitioned from a rigorous ballet background to pursue a college degree at 16, and was approached by editors at ExploreDance.com and Movmnt Magazine after they came across her writing on The Winger, a dance blog. "There's real opportunity out there, you have to kind of find your niche and see where you fit in and what you can do to set yourself apart to get your writing out there," she says. "Right now the best way to go is write for online, and the hard part about that is that most of it doesn't pay."

Gordon, who is currently pursuing her graduate degree in magazine publishing at Pace University, has also contributed freelance work to Pointe Magazine and Dancer Magazine's blog. She established her contacts at Pointe through an internship at the publication, while her other blog credits helped her secure an assignment at Dancer. While most of her blog work doesn't pay, she earns up to $200 for an average magazine piece and $45 for an article on ExploreDance.com. Her other online gigs, Gordon says, are unpaid.

"Get yourself online, even if you have to write for free for a while," she advises aspiring critics. "Get yourself a blog or a Web site where you can host all your writing so editors can see exactly what you've done."
Like Gordon, many critics find it necessary to supplement their writing work with a day job or a separate freelance business. While some publications pay writers based on their experience level or the length of their tenure, others don't have the means to raise their budgets.
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My favorite part is that I "advise aspiring critics...". I AM an aspiring critic haha, as I learned last weekend at the DCA conference.

Anyway, thought I'd share. Still have tons to blog about and little time as always.

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