Will Write for Food

Many of you will know that I moved to Cincinnati last fall with my girlfriend, Hilly, who is attending law school at a local university. Neither of us had ever imagined visiting this part of America, let alone living here. In the months before our move, we had trouble finding anyone who had ever actually been to Cincinnati. Whether or not they had, many thought it prudent to warn us about our future home.

"Good museums, but a lot of fat people," we were told. "Oh sure, Cincinnati. They make a casserole out of Coca-Cola," said another. Many confused it for Cleveland, home of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and a happy city by all accounts, but on the opposite end of Ohio.

I'll admit to referencing an atlas myself, days before we pulled into the city last fall with a laden car and open minds. We found a friendly little house to rent in Northern Kentucky, a stone's throw (well, more like a musket shot) across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati.

Within weeks Hilly was settling into her classes, and I was making appointments with the editors of local publications. Optimistically, I decided to freelance until I could secure a full-time position at the Cincinnati Enquirer, perhaps, or a local magazine. I set to work, dum de dee, finding work. Earnestly. I woke up early, walked briskly, and shook hands firmly.

At this point of the story I will tolerate a yawn. By now, of course, the plot's cliche: idealistic young journalist meets dying journalism industry, then pauses to reconsider his life's dreams. "One man," I imagine a narrator growling, "One unemployable skill... On a crash course with destiny!" Melodrama aside, this is a significant moment of reckoning for me. Which, I suppose, is why I am starting this blog.

I didn't admit defeat after realizing that a full-time position at a publication wasn't out there just waiting for me to walk into it. I've freelanced before, and I know how to be dogged and persistent. I started pitching stories to local editors. Before long, I had published a couple pieces in CityBeat, the local weekly. One was about a growing population of mentally ill homeless in Cincinnati. Another was about mountaintop removal coal mining in southeastern Kentucky. I wrote a story for Slate about the ship-breaking industry in India. At one point an editor at Cincinnati Magazine asked me to write a definitive article on female condoms. Who was I to turn down work? I took the assignment and my 2,000-word piece was published in February.

All the while, I have been scanning employment Web sites, writing cover letters (23 to date), fine-tuning my resume, and e-mailing human resources departments. After several months of this I remain unemployed, but looking for work has given me a wealth of material which I hope to record in this blog. My experience is a small chapter in the much larger stories of the recession and the decline of print journalism, but I hope to tell it with humor and whatever perspective my position offers. Thanks for following me, a young man in love and out of work in middle America.