Springfield Regional Arts Council

417 Magazine Editor To Share Tips On Freelancing

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Katie Pollock, editor of 417 Magazine, will be the featured speaker at the Thursday, July 31 Creamery Writers' Workshop held 7:00p.m. to 8:30p.m. at the Creamery Arts Center across from Hammons Field. Some of the topics to be covered include:

• guidelines for submitting resumes and clips for freelance consideration

• information about what a magazine looks for in freelancers (skills, etc.)

• tips for freelancing/magazine writing in general

• list and explanation of the different departments within 417 Magazine and what writing opportunities are available in each section

• the reporting/writing/creativity balance in magazine work — and how to focus your work for a city/regional magazine

• how to make your editor love you and want to work with you

Pollock, a native of St. Louis, attended University of Missouri–Columbia where she double-majored in English literature and journalism, with a focus on magazine editing. While there, she also received training in photojournalism. After graduation, she spent three months living in Manhattan and attending the competitive New York University Summer Publishing Institute, which covered all things related to the book and magazine publishing industries. There she attended lectures from industry veterans, such as Esquire’s editor-in-chief David Granger.

After earning a certificate from the Publishing Institute, Pollock headed back to Missouri. She was one of six students accepted to the Missouri School of Journalism’s competitive 4+1 graduate program, which allows students who received a bachelor’s degree from the J-school to go through a challenging and accelerated one-year master’s program. Her focus was magazine editing, and she studied under respected professors such as Dr. Don Ranly who have helped shape the field of journalism.

Pollock has worked at the Missouri Review, a literary magazine in Columbia and was responsible for reading short fiction submissions and helping choose pieces for publication. She also worked at Columbia’s Vox Magazine, where she moved through the ranks in four positions: books department editor, online editor, managing editor and editor-in-chief. As editor-in-chief, she oversaw a staff of more than 30 in the production of the weekly magazine. Then, while working on her master’s thesis—a focus group study with women who read men’s magazines—Pollock interned at Maxim Magazine in New York City, where she did everything from testing walkie talkies throughout the five boroughs to writing stories about cage fighters in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. When her term was up, she was hired as an assistant in the editorial department and given more writing responsibilities and weirder office responsibilities, such as searching all over New York City for scrapple for a photo shoot.

A college friend and Whitaker Publishing employee clued her in to a job opening at 417 Magazine in the fall of 2005, and Pollock flew to St. Louis and interviewed for the assistant editor job in Rolla. She was hired that day and started making plans to move from Brooklyn to Springfield. She arrived in the Queen City for the first time in her life in a van full of furniture.

Pollock was immediately responsible for planning and assigning all editorial content in 417 Home and 417 Bride, as well as numerous editing, planning and writing responsibilities at 417 Magazine. In 2006, she was promoted to senior editor. Her writing responsibilities have included narrative pieces on spending time at a dude ranch and a fly fishing camp, a heavily researched Best Places to Work cover story, travel writing, long personality profiles, food reviews and lots more. In early April 2007, Pollock was promoted again, this time to editor.

The Creamery Writers' Workshop, an outreach program of the Springfield Regional Arts Council, is free and open to all writers, regardless of age or genre. For more information, call the Arts Council, 417-862-ARTS(2787) or write Sandra@SpringfieldArts.org