Dear Writer Interested in Work:

Basically, I've written this letter to many folks who've stopped in and thought, wow, this is a cool site, maybe they'll give me a job. Here's what you'll get if you write the same letter:

Thank you for your interest! It's flattering that you think we have cash.

I wish I could offer a professional position to someone like you-- maybe someday, but for now, I have to say sorry! The website that we have is a volunteer organization only. We don't pay anyone-- mostly because we're just graduate students and young PhDs ourselves, and couldn't afford to do so! One of our editorial board members is looking to get us a grant, but at this time, we don't have any cash to pay writers, editors, anything. I am the editor/owner, and I pay a little more than 30 dollars a month to host the site-- out of my own pocket (not to mention time, energy & other fees like graphics sources). It's all altruism, really, and we sometimes wonder why we do it (masochism comes to mind!). :)

So you see that despite hopefully looking very professional, we aren't, and so don't have jobs to offer. Most of the scholarly websites out there are hosted/sponsored by some academic university or organization, and they don't get a lot of cash either-- it's one of those "professional development" sorts of things. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it), we're not hosted by any professional organization-- it's strictly a grassroots thing. It's pretty cool to be able to do it, but it definitely doesn't pay the rent.

Since you are clearly looking for some kind of writing assignments, I can offer one piece of info; you may already be aware of it, but here it is anyway. There is a website at about.com that offers advice and I think some job listings. A friend of mine found several freelance writing assignments/research jobs there. http://freelancewrite.about.com/ You can check it out to see if it works to find some opportunities for you to get into other paying writing positions.

Basically, I am a "do it yourself" kind of person-- I invest my own time & money into publishing my own writing & developing a place where others could work too. Folks like Justine and Natasha and the other editorial types signed on because they wanted to build experience and resumes, too, but no one on the site gets paid anything other than an occasional free book from an author. If you'd like to contribute money to the site, feel free to read the page about this.

Just because I have to say it, if I misunderstood, and you wanted to contribute writing on a volunteer basis, we would be happy to see it. Our next issue will be published in January-- submissions can come in whenever. You can check out our 'contribute' page for more information if this is your actual intent, but I don't think I read your inquiry incorrectly. http://www.womenwriters.net/contribute.htm

Best of luck with your work,

Kim Wells
www.womenwriters.net