Member in the Spotlight: Anthony Williams

2009 has been a heck of a year. While I know that’s been the case for almost everyone as we tackle a recession and prepare for a new decade, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I had the craziest.

I didn’t graduate in December 2008 like I’d planned, but I nonetheless took an internship this spring. Having never lived outside of my home state of Texas, I drove 2,700 miles to tiny La Grande, Oregon – going the long way of course, due to winter. After 12 weeks there I returned home to finish college and couldn’t get a job doing anything – anything.

I graduated in August, had a couple of freelance jobs to keep me steady, and then traveled outside of the country for the first time. I was a part of NLGJA’s student project at the annual convention in Montreal, meeting and talking to people I’d admired for years like Jeffrey Kofman and Michael Slezak.

And then I was back home, with nothing to do except pick my cousin up from school. But somehow, about two months later I wound up here at The Dallas Morning News.
There have been a lot of transitions this year, some forward and some back and forth, and I think a lot of growing up. No transition has been more interesting than the one now, navigating my way into the full-time workforce.

I’ve almost always had a job, so it wasn’t so much that. It’s changing your mindset, going from knowing what was ahead in six months or a year to a more wide-open road. No more internship applications, no more midterms and finals. I didn’t go to graduate school, but I imagined applying for jobs after school was like presenting a thesis on my life and work history to prospective employers.

It sucks playing the waiting game, but recent college graduates have got to be better at it then others, seeing as for the last four or more years we’re constantly waiting to hear back regarding a scholarship application or something extracurricular. That and, oh yeah, waiting to be grown.

So you graduate, and for those first few weeks or more, you’re a bit picky with where you apply and what for. A month later you’re sending your resume and cover letter off to Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Nope, doesn’t take long for desperation to kick in.

Then you get phone calls from bigwigs at those random places at 7 a.m. They don’t know you were out late hanging with old college buddies (the transition away from college life is a whole other topic). Interestingly enough it’s rather easy going through job applications and phone interviews. Things from your past that were hell give you examples of situations faced on the job. Like a difficult coworker at the student paper, or not knowing what exactly to do in the face of shrinking readership numbers but steadily attacking the problem anyway you know how.

Before you know it, you have your first in-person job interview. If you’re like me, it’s somewhere you totally didn’t expect to call you, a place that was letting people go left and right while you went to school down road. Then you look up, and you’re at your own desk there.

That’s not the end though. I’m out of the school cycle now, got a boost from NLGJA, and I’m hypothetically set, as people like to say. Thankfully I got yet more good advice from someone here on what my outlook should be. Just like how college students can’t coast through school, following the syllabi, and expect to get where they want to be without doing something extra on their own accord, that’s how you have to tackle the world.

Yes, the main objective is to handle the day-to-day, but I’ve still got to go after what I want, make my case and stand tall above the rest of the crowd. In other words: more theses.

Many of us leave high school eager to leave behind the pettiness and social structures, only to find college much the same. Well, life’s no different. You do what you do to get by while also going for what you may think is impossible, unattainable. I know I may sound like I’m speaking from a high horse, but I’m not blind to my many degreed friends who’re still trying, or those close to graduation, scared. Or even those who’ve been on their grind for years and don’t know how to handle our economy’s new problems. I’m just standing here as an example of what’s possible, because if I can make it here, everyone else should have Pulitzers and six-figure checks.

Am I still a little unsure of the future? Definitely. But after finding myself taking photos of sheep getting sheared on an Oregon farm, walking the Hollywood walk of fame and laughing uncontrollably in a Canadian McDonald’s this year, I have a job. And I was still able to make it back home for Thanksgiving.

I obviously had a lot to be thankful for, but I’m more grateful to continue walking one step at a time to see what’s ahead for me.

By Anthony Williams

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight

For years fellow NLGJA member Steven Petrow has been the go-to-guy for all LGBT etiquette questions. Through his acclaimed book The Essential Book of Gay Manners and Etiquette; a popular column in Genre magazine; frequent articles on The Huffington Post, OUT.com, and in The Advocate (and in more than two dozen LGBT newspapers in the U.S., Canada and the U.K); as well numerous interviews on radio and television, he has been dispensing candid advice with a dollop of his trademark humor to gays and straights alike. Readers say Petrow combines Emily Post’s practical and encyclopedic approach with the voice—and wit—of Miss Manners.

On October 12, to coincide with National Coming Out Week, Petrow launched a new Web site Steven Petrow’s Gay and Lesbian Manners Online (http://www.gayandlesbianmanners.com/) that will answer everyone’s – gay or straight -- LGBT questions on dating, sex, marriage, coming out, and all the rest.

"LGBT people are faced with many new situations—some difficult and uncomfortable, others joyous and exciting—that require guidance,” says Petrow. “That’s what motivated me to create this Web site, where both gays and straights can email me their LGBT etiquette dilemmas, which I like to call “Queeries.” I’ll answer as many as I can on the site and in my columns.”

The entire LGBT community (as well as the straight people in their lives) will find Steven Petrow’s unique brand of advice refreshing and invaluable as they tackle all of the modern-day dilemmas.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight

Emily Sweeney, a staff reporter at The Boston Globe, was invited to attend the 2009 Ted Scripps Leadership Institute. Sweeney is president of the New England chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She's also been tapped to serve on the Board of Trustees for The Huntington News, a student-run newspaper at Northeastern University. Photo Credit: Eric Hess

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight

In March, NLGJA member Scott Piro was deployed to Tel Aviv to head up the international office of a new California-based not-for-profit charitable organization named ORAM International: the Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration.

ORAM's assists particularly vulnerable and forgotten refugees and migrants seeking safe haven and security. Among ORAM's focus groups are lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender individuals, women who have suffered sexual and gender-based violence, the elderly, the ill and the disabled. Its first client projects involve LGBTs in Turkey and Israel.

ORAM conducts education and advocacy, provides legal advice and facilitates legal representation for these highly vulnerable individuals in their quest for secure legal status and resettlement.

As communications director, Scott is launching http://www.oraminternational.org/, handling the organization's publicity, and booking speaking opportunities for ORAM's executive director.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Chuck Small

Longtime Carolinas member Chuck Small finished 15 years to the day at The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) on Oct. 3. Although he was primarily a copy editor, he had written a few dozen pieces, many of which were about GLBT subjects, and his last piece -- on hometown boy Clay Aiken's coming out -- received the most response he'd ever gotten to a piece.

The column quickly made it to the Aiken fan boards, and Small heard from folks in California and Michigan within hours of publication.

In the column, Small alerted readers to his plans to return to school to become a high school guidance counselor: "As I prepare to enter a new line of work, friends and colleagues have asked me whether I will go back in as I start a new career. Ultimately, I came to the same conclusion Aiken did: The time for being hidden is over."

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Erik Piepenburg

Erik Piepenburg has been selected as a fellow for the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. The program, now in its seventh year, seeks to establish a new standard of excellence in arts and culture coverage. Piepenburg is a senior web producer for The New York Times. He is responsible for developing and reporting theater-related multimedia features, including audio slide shows, photo essays and audio interviews.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Alan Flippen

Longtime NLGJA member Alan Flippen has been appointed editor, newsroom organization for the International Herald Tribune (IHT), a six-month assignment that will take him to Paris to help reorganize the IHT newsroom's budget and management along New York Times lines.

[CW:MONTHLY] Members in the Spotlight: Geoff Dankert & Edward Alwood

Geoff Dankert has been named assistant news director for WFLD FOX Chicago. Most recently, Dankert was the managing editor for FOX News Chicago, where he helped launch the station's late-evening newscast, "The Ten." He joined WFLD-TV in 1999 from WXYZ-TV in Detroit, where he was an executive producer. Dankert, the recipient of a Chicago/Midwest Emmy and a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, began his broadcasting career more than 20 years ago as a radio reporter and anchor in his home state of Michigan.

"Dark Days in the Newsroom: McCarthyism Aimed at the Press" by Edward Alwood has been named Best Book of the Year 2008 by the Connecticut Press Club. Alwood, a former CNN correspondent, is a professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University. He is a founding member of NLGJA and authored "Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media."

[CW:MONTHLY] Members in the Spotlight: Ina Fried & Randol White

NLGJA National Vice President for Print & New Media Ina Fried is traveling to Miami and Latin America to look at both the power and limits of computing. Follow her on her trip to some of the world's most exciting emerging markets in a special section of her CNET News.com blog Beyond Binary called Borders of Computing.

NLGJA Member Randol White has launched JournalistJunction.com, a free Web site where broadcast journalists can upload video clips and search for jobs, all while news directors use the site to search for talent. That means no more churning out expensive video tapes or waiting in line at the post office.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Cindy Collins

Like many NLGJA members, Cindy Collins has the privilege of pursuing a personal passion for making a difference in the LGBT community in her career. As public relations director of Rainbow Legends, an independent publishing company in Kearney, MO, Cindy works with its founders to provide a powerful way to open the hearts and minds of a world full of prejudice and discrimination.

With 20+ years of freelance writing, advertising agency work, and most recently until it closed in October, ownership of the first and only LGBT-focused bookstore in Omaha, NE, Cindy now encourages others to share their personal stories.

“Storytelling is the oldest, most powerful medium known to man,” says Collins. “Rainbow Legends has traveled across the country gathering true stories for 'Dragonfly Stories: Stories Celebrating the LGBTQ Community' (released October 2007). These incredible stories about coming out, raising families/same-sex parenting, hate crimes, HIV, transgender issues, activism, reclaiming religious faith and more touch the hearts of everyone who reads them. It’s amazing to see how getting to know someone’s story can help others better understand the obstacles that the LGBTQ community must overcome just to be who we are.”

With the success of "Dragonfly Stories," volume two is now in the works for June 2008.

The publisher’s books have a unique mission: To help empower LGBT organizations by giving back 40% of book sales to them when selected by buyers at time of purchase. Books are available at http://www.rainbowlegends.com/, where stories may also be submitted for possible inclusion in the "Dragonfly" series — which are intended to continue as long as there are LGBT stories to tell.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Zamná Ávila

After several years as a reporter at the Reno Gazette-Journal, NLGJA member Zamná Ávila is moving home to Southern California to help start an exciting new project.

In December 2007, he was hired as an editor for a niche publication, Clout magazine, that will launch in February-March 2008. Clout will be a new and sophisticated magazine for the LGBT community in the Long Beach area. It will include entertainment, fashion, home décor, gardening and landscaping, travel, dining, legal and relationship advice, and success profiles.

Ávila's first day on the job was December 24, 2007. While Clout is still in the planning stages, the magazine is already seeking flexible freelancers who are familiar with Long Beach and surrounding communities, and who have great work ethics and skillful writing techniques.

Interested in getting involved? E-mail Zamná Ávila at zamna_avila@yahoo.com for more information.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Louise Sloan

Louise Sloan, a longtime magazine editor and writer, recently wrote her first book, Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem! A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom, published under the Avery imprint of Penguin Books.

Knock Yourself Up features Louise's own hilarious and heartwarming story, plus the experiences of other women from all over the U.S. who decided they wouldn't let being single stand in the way of creating a family. This entertaining and informative book is required reading for any single woman over 30 who thinks she might want kids someday.

Sloan has been a professional writer and editor for 20 years. She has written columns and articles for publications including Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Self, Ms., Out, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Bay Guardian and AARP. In June 2006 she became a single mom when her son Scott was born.

Interested in becoming the next Member in the Spotlight? Drop NLGJA Career Watch an e-mail and let us know what you've been up to.

[CW:MONTHLY] Member in the Spotlight: Cathy Renna & Renna Communications

Renna Communications was selected from among more than one thousand entries and named as a finalist in the PRNews 2007 Platinum PR Awards. At a luncheon held today in New York City, the firm received honorable mention recognition in the multi-cultural campaign category for its efforts on behalf of Family Equality Council (formerly Family Pride) during the organization's involvement in the 2006 White House Easter Egg Roll. The media campaign, called "Introducing LGBT-Headed Families to America," resulted in the largest media visibility event on behalf of LGBT parents and their children in United States history.

"Being recognized as a finalist for this prestigious award during only our second year as a firm is truly an accomplishment," said Leah McElrath Renna, managing partner at Renna Communications. "We were up against campaigns funded by such corporate and public relations giants as Procter & Gamble, Honda, Pacific Gas & Electric and Fleishman Hillard. Our being nominated at all is a triumph of David over Goliath. We are very proud of our work raising the visibility of LGBT family issues and look forward to continued successes on behalf of our clients in the future."

Through the "Introducing LGBT-Headed Families to America" campaign, Renna Communications helped Family Equality Council leverage their participation in the 2006 White House Egg Roll into media coverage worth well over $1 million and achieve more than 16.5 million media impressions through television alone.

"Given this Administration's history of demonizing LGBT people and our families for political gain, we took particular pleasure in being able to transform a White House photo opportunity into the largest media visibility event on behalf of LGBT-headed families in history." said Cathy Renna, managing partner. "We are excited that the sophistication and impact of Renna Communications' work has been publicly recognized by mainstream public relations professionals."

Renna Communications is a public interest progressive communications firm with special expertise in LGBT issues. They provide sophisticated and nuanced communications strategies to organizations and people who are working to change the world for the better. On December 3, Simon Aronoff, who has previously held positions at Fenton Communications, NCTE and PFLAG, will join Renna Communications as a vice president. He will be based in Washington, DC.

Click here for more information on Renna Communications.

Interested in becoming the next Member in the Spotlight? Drop NLGJA Career Watch an e-mail and let us know what you've been up to.