Year in Review
2015 was the year that I forced myself to become a writer. Before, even though I'd write something that landed on a website every now and again, I had lots of other jobs I could tell people I had: student, barista, video store clerk. But in February, I left the video store to work at an internship where my job was to write all day, and after I left that I kept finding ways to live off of writing or editing words. I finally stopped trying to do school, which was clearly going nowhere. Unless I lie out of embarrassment, which I do often enough, when people ask me what I do, I usually answer "writer." It feels like I'm cheating — I'm 20, I shouldn't be getting paid for words. But I guess with that in mind, here are some words I got paid for in 2015:
"Your Scoop Doesn't Matter" (Gawker)
Though I wrote every day at the aforementioned internship, nothing I wrote there deserves thinking about twice. So for all intents and purposes, with the exception of a joke post I wrote that somehow snuck onto The Awl, this was the first thing that I wrote in 2015. It dovetailed with the end of my internship nicely; I wrote it all on the day that I gave my two weeks' notice, and the next day, it was published and I was prematurely let go from the internship for a tweet. It's not a major piece at all, but it made enough of a splash in ~media Twitter~ that I made enough connections to begin trying to survive as a full-time freelancer.
Web Editor at Lumpen Magazine
I moved into my current neighborhood in Chicago, Bridgeport, in May 2014. While Googling around trying to find information and blogs about the neighborhood, I found Bridgeport International, a strange little blog that seeemed to be associated with Maria's, a local bar and liquor store, and Lumpen, a weird art and politics magazine that I saw at neighborhood coffee shops sometimes. I emailed the contact email asking if they wanted an intern — how better to learn the neighborhood? I got an informal internship and started working on stories for the International, which had put out two print editions of an occasional community newspaper in two separate years, and was planning another one.
None of the stories I wrote ever made it into the print paper, or onto the blog, and I was never really sure why. It's an informally-run place, though, and I didn't think it meant anything, since I'd had positive feedback on them. So in June, after I had been let go from my internship, I reached out to the head of the Public Media Institute, a nonprofit that runs Lumpen and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, a gallery in Bridgeport. I proposed taking Lumpen to the web — it was mostly a print zine before, but had existed in various forms in Chicago since the early '90s — and supplementing the print content with a daily blog. I would be the editor of the blog, and I would begin by using writers from STOTD, a group writing project I had started with some friends. He liked the idea, and I started immediately.
It seemed to be going well for a while. We were publishing two to three items daily, things I was proud to have worked on, including original pieces and things I'd typed up from old print editions of Lumpen. But I was incredibly new to the process of running something, and my superiors were too busy to help me much. In late July, the head of the project decided to switch paths, and that the website I'd worked on should be shelved for a different one that focused on local businesses, after which I left.
"Vaping is all the rage, but is it addictive?" (RedEye)
I saw an ad in the back of the Chicago Reader, the biggest alt-weekly, for a vaping convention in the suburbs. I had recently watched Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Gray's Anatomy, a monologue by professional monologist Spalding Gray about needing, and not wanting, an eye surgery. His not wanting eye surgery makes him do things we wouldn't — he goes to see a "psychic surgeon" in the Philippines, he consults with a Christian Science elder — before giving in and having an eye surgery. He presents these actions as manifestations of his neurosis, but one of the special features in the Criterion Collection release of the movie features an interview with Gray's ex-wife and co-writer on the stage version of Gray's Anatomy, Renée Shafransky. She talks about how, at this point in Gray's career — after building a career as a successful monologist who plumbed his thoughts and history for meaning he could twirl out for an audience for an hour or two — he was living his life to have these experiences just to talk about them in front of an audience. She presented this as negative, but it was so intriguing to me. It made me decide to start doing things just to be able to tell people about them.
So I saw an ad for a vaping convention in the Chicago suburbs. It was $10 for consumer tickets. I sent out a pitch to RedEye, a free commuter paper, but didn't hear back until after the convention (luckily, I went anyway — it made for some good tweets if nothing else). They wanted the focus to be on how addictive vaping is, whether it's creating new nicotine addicts in kids who start vaping. (The answer is yes.) There's not much to the piece itself, but it was a way to get paid to tell other people what it was like to go to this convention. And it ended up being the cover story, so that was kinda cool.
"How the Other Half Shares" (The Morning News)
In February 2014, I applied to be an Editorial Fellow at The Morning News. I was a month into the second semester of my failed one-year attempt at college, I'd written a tiny bit for some very small websites, but I had no real experience doing much of anything except post on social media. But for some reason, I got the fellowship, and after eight months, I was asked to join TMN as a Contributing Editor.
But before August of this year, I'd never written anything for TMN. Or rather, I'd never published anything. This piece was actually the second that I started working on there; my editors and I worked on the first one for well over a year before we decided to put it out of its misery. "How the Other Half Shares" is one of the better things I've done this year, imo. I'm glad this marked my TMN debut.
Interviews with Kayla Newman and Dylan Collins (PAPER)
A friend of mine asked if I wanted to start interviewing internet-famous teenagers for PAPER, which is something I don't think I'm ever in any position to turn down. The pages are unfortunately currently broken due to PAPER's recent site design, but these are my two favorites from the "Yasss Teen" interview series that I worked on. Petition PAPER to fix the webpages!
"City to Rapper: Drop Dead" (The Morning News)
I spent hours watching Chief Keef music videos for this. Beyond that, everyone should pitch The Morning News immediately if only for the chance to be edited by Rosecrans Baldwin.
"Back of the House" (South Side Weekly)
This is an interview with the aging (never found out quite how old) proprietor of my favorite restaurant in Bridgeport, a 24-hour hot dog and burger window called Johnny O's. Johnny O is the actual owner, and he's a delight to talk to. The best part about having done this interview is that now whenever I go to Johnny O's, he stops me for a chat (and sometimes a free soda).
Best of Bridgeport 2015 (South Side Weekly)
I volunteered myself and Leah Menzer, who I worked with at Lumpen, to edit the Bridgeport neighborhood section of South Side Weekly's annual Best of the South Side issue. It was a refreshing challenge to look through the neighborhood with that lens. Shortly after this, the Weekly, a nonprofit alt-weekly that serves the South Side of Chicago, asked me to fill in for their Social Media Editor through the end of the year, which I accepted.
"The Beautiful People Are the Hardest to Draw: Interview With a Courtroom Artist" (Ratter)
I replied to one of Ratter's Inverse Pitches for this, and it ended up being one of the more interesting conversations I've had. I wish the full interview had been printed, but it was regardless a joy to do and I think that comes across in the final product.
Shortly after Ratter ran this story, they hired me as an Associate Editor.
"The Chicago End-Times" (The Awl)
I wrote, at length, about my internship and #content and #journalism. I think this is the longest thing I've ever written. It took…six months, I think. It was all I thought about for weeks and weeks and weeks. Really, looking back, it kind of makes me never want to write again. It's very depressing.
One of the first things I remember loving on the internet was The A.V. Club's TV Club. I'd always wanted to tackle a whole show, going over every episode. I struck out about a year ago trying to pitch The A.V. Club, but hadn't given it much thought until I found Bitter Empire, which is an extremely underrated site that a lot more people should be reading. The editor invited me to pitch them, and the only thing I could think of was weekly recaps of Taxi, a show I'm eternally thankful to Elon Green for introducing me to. For some reason, they accepted. I've covered the whole first season so far.
"Why Not Wilson?" (South Side Weekly)
I interviewed the only person of color running for the Democratic nomination for president. We talked about how his party is ignoring him and how he's "running for president, but running for Christ, too."
2015 was chill but I'm working on some cool stuff for 2016. Follow me on Twitter.
