Big news! After 17 years swinging a pickaxe at the independent blogging coal-face, I've landed my first, paid writing gig. Finally, a regular (and none too shabby) salary. Health insurance. Vacation time. A modest travel stipend. Work-at-home arrangement. The whole deal.
That's the good part.
The part that might give some of you a little agita is that my new employer is... The Bulwark.
That's right. After a few weeks of negotiating, they're bringing me on board as their "Midwest Cultural Correspondent" (the title was my suggestion.) They're letting me keeping my blog handle (that's apparently my "brand value") and you'll probably be seeing my actual face on their website after a few months of settling in.
Like most jobs, it comes are a few conditions and strings. In this case they mostly involve my rate of output and my subject matter. Specifically, throttling back somewhat on my "saltier" writing about Never Trumpers and focusing more on my unique slant on our values, trends and traditions here in the mighty Midwest. There's even some talk about rolling our "Science Fiction University" podcast into the regular Bulwark podcast lineup which would increase our listenership something like 100 fold. Who knows? Might even get a book deal out of it!
Of course, since I'll be putting in a lot of time getting this new gig off the ground, I'll probably have to cut back on blogging here, but I'll definitely continue swinging around from time to time to do a little of the old stuff.
More later!
Until then...
*Update: April Fools!
