Gawker Writers Unionize!

The National Writers Union and all of our freelance members want to congratulate the staff writers and editors at Gawker Media on their overwhelming vote to join the Writers Guild of America-East. As workers in the creative economy, we know that all too often our work is undervalued by those who profit from it the […]

NWU Co-Sponsors World Press Freedom Event at the United Nations

“Finding Security in Unsafe Passages” was a half-day event for journalists that the National Writers Union co-sponsored at the United Nations in New York on May 7 to mark World Press Freedom Day and raise awareness of the International Federation of Journalist’s End Impunity campaign. According to IFJ, more than 700 journalists have been killed […]

How My NWU Press Pass Kept Me Out Of Jail

“The bottom line is that the subpoena…was a form of harassment, a brazen attempt to follow up a gag on mainstream media with threats against a citizen journalist.” I am a working writer for the mysterious Catharine Sloper, an outspoken critic of the family court system and the proprietor of the blog Divorce in Connecticut (DiC). […]

An Interview with Author Anita Diamant

Researching her latest novel, The Boston Girl, Anita Diamant poured over fashion photographs from the early 1900’s: She surveyed image after image of women in trippingly long dresses, cinched tightly at the waist. They helped the author understand the restrictive world of her protagonist, Addie Baum, who grew up in an era when women were […]

On Blogging: Making a Living Wage as an Online Writer

I used to work for a travel agency that specialized in around-the-world airline tickets. In the fall of 2001, we found out about a new TV show, The Amazing Race, which had us excited. CBS premiered its reality series about teams of people going around the world competing in challenges on Sept. 5, 2001, and […]

Work-for-Hire: A Great Market

Copyrights are important to a writer’s success, but so is money. Sometimes work for hire (WFH) is a great way to earn money. Freelancers can make good incomes writing promotional materials, product manuals, grants, or books in series (think Dummies). Without owning the copyrights they can’t sell the movie or smartphone app rights, but how […]