Freelance Writing Jobs: Wizz Air, BFI, Visit London
Plus loads of opportunities in Scotland.
Write Your Non-Fiction Book Proposal with Penny Wincer
Wednesday 7th May at 7pm
Want to write a book proposal that will have literary agents biting your hand off to represent you?
In this 90-minute online workshop with author and book coach, Penny Wincer, you’ll learn how to make your proposal stand-out from the crowd. Workshop includes a downloadable guide and recording to keep.
Places are £39 and FWJ subscribers get £5.00 off using the code FWJ5 at the checkout.
"A career-changing book... if you're thinking about going freelance, read this first," says GQ’s Oliver Franklin-Wallis.
My book The Pyjama Myth: the Freelance Writer's Survival Guide will make you a better, happier freelancer and you can order your copy from Bookshop.
Hello! How are you doing? I have been waiting a lot this year. Waiting for submission news, waiting for projects to start, recovering from injury, waiting for test results, and – for goodness sake – waiting to find out if my publisher is ever going to pay me. I freelance because I like being in control and calling the shots in my own life, but sometimes that’s not how things go. You need a certain degree of patience to be freelance and I’ve never really had that, to be honest. But after five months, I do finally have a renewed gym membership. I can’t predict the rest, but it feels like a good week.
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Florence Derrick is now editor of WIZZ, the inflight travel magazine for Wizz Air, and is looking for pitches for the August/September edition covering Cyprus, Germany (Dortmund, Cologne and Nuremburg), Italy (Naples, Milan and Verona), Egyptian Red Sea destinations and Bilbao. Timely hooks essential, and quirky, trend-led or active/ experiential angles preferred. Rates around 40p per word. Email derrick@lxm-media.com by 7th May.
Laura Snapes, The Guardian’s deputy music editor, has updated their pitching guide and tells me she would “would LOVE to get some exciting, smart, well reported pitches”. Want more intel? Here’s my recent interview with Laura.
Lots of local goodies at Newsquest this week. They’re taking on a part-time audience and content editor gig covering titles in East Anglia: EDP, Evening News, East Anglian Daily Times, and Ipswich Star.
And this one’s not actually listed on their site, but I think it’s a separate role: another audience and content editor covering Oxford Mail, South Wales Argus, Swindon Advertiser and Worcester News.
Also at Newsquest, they need a part-time senior reporter to work across their local Cambridgeshire titles: The Hunts Post, the Ely Standard, Wisbech Standard, Cambs Times, and Peterborough Matters.
For those of you based in the capital, Visit London is looking for a sub-editor to work two days a week.
BBC Belfast is hiring a part-time assistant editor as part of its EXTEND Programme.
Plum Guide is looking for freelance listings builders. Meanwhile I am eying up this extremely cute house.
Parkinson’s UK is taking on a part-time junior content editor.
Marketing agency Curious Cat Digital needs a part-time content executive. My curious cat has taken to noisily eating wasps this week. Somehow both disgusting and helpful.
Another marketing agency role: this time Cubaka is hiring a freelance B2B copywriter (although the job ad doesn’t sound very freelance tbh).
HSBC Global Services is hiring a part-time editorial writer.
New skills and business education company academy+ is looking for a part-time content marketing manager.
Know your HMRC from your elbow? TAXYZ is taking on a freelance content writer.
Look, I’ve tried and I just can’t make bins sound glam; Leafield Environmental is hiring a PR and content coordinator on a part-time basis. The job description is far heavier on the content side of things.
The University of Cambridge is looking for a digital communications associate to work three days a week. Loads of writing in this role.
The BFI is hiring freelance script readers for its filmmaking fund. Make sure you apply by midnight on Friday. (BFI links can be glitchy, just hit the search button on the jobs page if it redirects.)
The Balbir Singh Dance Company need a freelance creative copywriter.
King’s College London is hiring a part-time creative writing lecturer.
This one could be really interesting: Sibling Arts is hiring a freelance researcher to help them map community-led, politically-engaged, socially-rooted arts practices.
Poets, this one’s for you: ignitionpress at Oxford Brookes University is open for poetry pamphlet submissions.
The New Forest National Park Artist Residency is open for applications until midnight on Friday. All creative areas considered, including writing.
If you’d like a writing residency at Cromarty Arts Trust (I dug my novel out of a hole while I was there last year), then make a note of the deadline - they’re making all decisions by the end of May.
The University of Edinburgh is looking for a new writer-in-residence.
The Hugo Burge Foundation launches its brand new grant scheme today. In the first round, creative individuals from Scotland are welcome to apply.
The Kindle Storyteller Award opens for entries tomorrow.
Writers of children’s fiction, there are free entry places available for the Undiscovered Voices Prize, run by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Or Scooby, as they’re lovingly called by their members.
If you’re not yet 20 and have a historical short story that needs a home, enter the Young Walter Scott Prize.
Theatre writers, the Kevin Elyot Award is now open for submissions.
The Edwin Morgan Trust is running Clydebuilt 18 – a poetry mentoring scheme for writers in Scotland.
If you’d like to join Penny Wincer’s Non-fiction Book Proposal Group but you’re on a low income, apply for a bursary place by 1st May.
Last one of the week before I go and row on a machine like a Viking: the National Diversity Awards are open for nominations, so if you know a brilliant freelancer who fits the bill, get shouting about them. Nothing but good vibes for freelancers who celebrate other freelancers.
Loved this issue? Hit that heart button, share with a freelance friend, or buy me a cuppa.
And finally: currently reading | perfect little lunch | fantastic exhibition | don’t forget these pitching guidelines | all the books I’ve loved this year.
I'm Sian Meades-Williams. I'm a freelance writer, author and poet and I was the winner of the 2022 Yeovil Literary Prize. My book The Pyjama Myth: the Freelance Writer's Survival Guide will make you a better, happier freelancer and it’s out now.
Best of luck with your pitches this week!