Monthly Archives: December 2009

Let me preface this by stating that this is in no way intended to be a smear piece written by a disgruntled ex-freelancer.

Well, not completely.

I’ve been writing a wine column for SEE Magazine for just under two years. Aside from a few isolated incidents in which my article was cut due to space restrictions, my column ran every single week. I dare say I had grown rather comfortable – complacent, even – with the situation.

Then November arrived, and my column was held due to space. No problem, I thought. It’ll run next week.

It didn’t. In fact, my column didn’t run at all in November. Apparently things were “really tight” and though they “kept hoping the issues would get bigger,” it just didn’t happen. Funny, I didn’t really notice that the papers were that much smaller. Certainly most of the other regular columns ran on schedule.

Now, I realize it was only a matter of time before the publishing world’s woes caught up with me. At the beginning of 2009, I remarked to myself that my gig at this little local alt-weekly actually seemed far more secure than those “real” journalists with their “real” positions in the big papers. I breezed past the uneasy whispers of lay-offs and bankruptcies, confident that I was untouchable.

I’ve since been humbled. The end of 2009 has arrived, and my column has been “put off indefinitely.” SEE has just gone through a few radical changes, namely losing two main editors (one of which went on maternity leave and one of which was fired); these positions were filled with two former SEE freelancers. It doesn’t look very likely that the “Booze Muse” (or whatever the hell they called me – it seemed to change all the time) will be returning in 2010.

On a side note, they did end up running that piece they had sat on throughout November – the very next week after they informed me that my column was suspended. Who says real-world irony is hard to come by?
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