I’ve tried blogging once before. In the weeks before I left for college at the end of summer in 2007. My first foray into the blogosphere was Wildcat Wire, named for the mascot of Northwestern University, my alma mater as of a month ago. It was mainly a music blog, as I had been obsessed with Hype Machine and every blog it could link me to since the previous summer, but I also wrote a bit about movies, Northwestern sports, and various other cultural things.
For whatever reason, that blog slowed down during the fall of 2008. School got heavier and I started writing for North By Northwestern, the online alternative to The Daily Northwestern. But then, as often does in college, something happened I didn’t expect. I started taking upper-division screenwriting classes – mostly with Regina Stewart, my favorite film professor from my time at NU – as well as getting accepted into the Writing Program in the English Department, which set off two year-long writing sequences, first in fiction, then in poetry. That diminished my writing output for places outside of class during my sophomore and junior years.
This past year I was an editorial intern at The A.V. Club, the entertainment-focused sister publication of The Onion, and home to writers I’ve followed and idolized for years, including Keith Phipps, Scott Tobias, Tasha Robinson, Nathan Rabin, and Todd Van Der Werff. The environment was amazing, and as I worked my ass off to prove myself as an intern and earn writing assignments, my love for critical writing reawakened. I rejoined North By Northwestern as a senior writer, and churned out every article assignment I could get my hands on. Now I’m on track to be a freelance reviewer, actively seeking out paid opportunities, but I want a place I can call my own, a small corner of the Internet that will be used as a live and continually updated resume for all of my writing that doesn’t make it into some other publication.
Here are my goals for this new site in no particular order:
- Longer think-pieces on trends in television, film, music, sports, etc.
- Weekly reviews/analysis of television episodes, movies, albums, etc.
- Observations on the sports and teams I follow: soccer, college football, NFL, MLB
- Anything else that comes into my mind
Knowing myself as I do means I can’t promise constant updates. I’m writing book reviews weekly, contributing unpaid to a few other websites, and looking for a part-time job to make up the rest of my rent while I indulge my writing endeavors for now. This will be a place where I can write my thoughts on whatever cultural items are gaining traction as I make my way through my post-collegiate life. Stick with me, and join the discussion, this should be a damn good time.
