Fellowships

The Village Voice Media fellowship program presents an unparalleled opportunity for young writers who wish to pursue a career in magazine-style journalism.

The purpose of the program is to identify writers who have the potential to become full-time staff writers, but who, through no fault of their own, lack the experience to be hired into such positions.

Writing fellowships are six-month jobs. They pay $500 per week, without benefits. Most fellows hired either have a master's degree or at least a year of practical journalistic experience outside school. However, in some instances, fellows may be hired immediately after completing their bachelor's degree.

Village Voice Media fellowships are writing and reporting jobs. Our fellows don't do busywork, compile listings, go for coffee, or complete 'research' for more experienced writers. Instead, they work intensively with an experienced editor/mentor to learn the basics of long-form news and feature writing. During the six-month fellowship period, they produce three magazine-style cover stories, as well as making daily contributions to their publication's news blog.

The fellowship program is a performance-based meritocracy. Fellows do not compete against each other for jobs, and there is no guaranteed wash-out rate. Instead, upon completion of their fellowship, fellows who have performed up to Village Voice Media standards are given first priority for any entry-level staff writing jobs available around the company.

Since the Village Voice Media fellowship program began in 1999, 65 people have accepted and completed fellowships. Of that number, 44--or 68 percent--have been hired as staff writers.

READING LIST

Perhaps the best way to gauge the success of the Village Voice Media fellowship program is to read stories written by our present or former fellows. Here is a selection:

Andy Mannix, City Pages
"Paul Koenig: The One Man Housing Crisis"
"Joe Basel: From U of M-Morris to Louisiana Watergate"

Lois Beckett, SF Weekly
"Turning the Tables"

J. David McSwane, Westword
"Bad Fences Make Bad Neighbors"

Casey Lyons, The Pitch
"The Most Notorious Prostitute"
"The Rock's Christian Soldiers"

Vernal Coleman, Seattle Weekly
"Catch Me If You Camp"
"Thread Man Walking"

Nicholas Phillips, Riverfront Times
"Scam Baiter"
"Sweet Treatment"

Emily Brady, Village Voice
"See Dick Pay Jane"
"Takeout on Euclid Avenue"

Mike Giglio, Houston Press
"You Want a Piece of Me?"
"Middle Class and Homeless"

Melanie Asmar, Westword
"Who Was Angie Zapata?"
"Needle Points"

Alexa Schirtzinger, Dallas Observer
"At the Dog Park"
"Why Not Save Some Trees?"

Spencer Kornhaber, OC Weekly
"Shopping for Skinheads"
"The Funancial Crisis!"

Brantley Hargrove, New Times Broward-Palm Beach
"Blood Diamonds"
"Smoked Tuna in the Can"

Natalie O'Neill, Miami New Times
"Awfully Wedded Wife"
"Big Red Hustles and Grows"

Elizabeth Dwoskin, Village Voice
"Gun-Ho for New York"
"Clearing Corpses for Take-Off"

Sam Merten, Dallas Observer
"For Whom the Bell Tolls"

Isaiah Thompson, Miami New Times
"Grady and the Champ"
"Swept Under the Bridge"

Matthew Fleischer, LA Weekly
"Daddy From Hell"
"Navahoax"

Lauren Smiley, SF Weekly
"Girl/Boy Interrupted"

Karla Starr, Seattle Weekly
"Testing Video Games Can't Possibly Be Harder Than an Afternoon With Xbox, Right?"
"I Am Trying to Hear That"

Peter Rugg, The Pitch
"Lawn of the Dead"
"Smoke Over Water"

Elizabeth Ulrich, Nashville Scene
"Field of Screams"
"Naked Before God"

Jeneen Interlandi, Village Voice
"Green Card Negative"
"TB or Not TB"

Joel Warner, Westword
"Sole Survivor"
"Mr. Big"

Ashley Harrell, New Times Broward-Palm Beach
"Driving While Demented"
"After Baghdad"

Andrea Grimes, Dallas Observer
"Over the Edge"
"Icy Hot"

Eliza Strickland, SF Weekly
"The Asylum Trap"
"Disturbing the Peace"

Megan Irwin, Phoenix New Times
"It Girl"
"Borrowed Time"

Clay Smith, Dallas Observer
"Gay Caballeros"
"The Sins of the Father"

Jared Jacang Maher, Westword
"Building for the Future"
"Skate Nation"

Rick Kennedy, New Times Broward-Palm Beach
"Pierce and Play"
"Mutiny on the Atlantica"

Paul Kix, Dallas Observer
"All the Rage"
"Bass Fishing in America"

Forrest Norman, Miami New Times
"The Question That Won't Die"
"A Brush With Death"

Casey Logan, The Pitch
"The Lighter Side of Torture"
"Screwed by Sprint"

Michael Serazio, Houston Press
"Children of Enron"
"Passport to Nowhere"

Matt Palmquist, SF Weekly
"A Duty to Hack"
"The Pain of the Disco Ninja"

AWARDS

In addition to competing successfully in regional and local writing competitions, Village Voice Media fellows have been recognized in national writing competitions pitting them against the country's major newspapers and magazines.

Nadia Pflaum, The Pitch
Pflaum's "Aftermath" told the story of a woman's painful recovery from a violent sexual assault. By gaining a remarkable level of access to her subject, Pflaum was able to give readers a finely detailed look at how a life can be pieced back together--and how a "victim" can transcend that label to ultimately stand as a profile in courage. This story won the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi award from the national Society of Professional Journalists.

Matt Snyders, City Pages
Snyders' "Moles Wanted", along with two other news stories written in advance of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, earned him first-place for election coverage in the 2009 AltWeekly Awards. It was an especially sweet victory for Snyders given his arrest by police while covering demonstrations at the RNC.

Elizabeth Dwoskin, Village Voice
For her story "The Fall of the House of Rubashkin," about the tribulations of a kosher meatpacker, Dwoskin was named a finalist in the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, the nation?s premier contest for reporters 34 years of age and younger.

Eliza Strickland, SF Weekly
Strickland's "Burnt Chefs" was an investigative project aimed at exposing inflated claims made by a prestigious California cooking school. The story was a first-place winner in the 2008 Clarion Awards, and also was named a finalist in the Bert Greene Awards; it also took first-place in investigative reporting in the local SPJ contest.

Ashley Harrell, SF Weekly
Harrell's "Snitch" told the story of a San Francisco woman who chose to testify against a murderer to save her son — and learned that, in the projects, truth comes with a price. The story received first-place in the long-form news story category at the 2009 AltWeekly Awards. Harrell's "Rebreathe Deep the Gathering Doom," about a fatal diving accident off the Florida coast, took third-place in the feature writing category of the 2008 Association for Alternative Newsweeklies awards.

Isaiah Thompson, Miami New Times
"The People Under the Bridge", written by Thompson shortly after he arrived in Miami, was the 2008 First-Place Winner in the Local Circulation Weeklies category of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Awards.

Lauren Smiley, SF Weekly
Smiley's "Girl/Boy Interrupted" was her first-ever long-form article as a fellow, and was named a finalist for Outstanding Newspaper Article in the 2008 GLAAD Media Awards, receiving recognition alongside articles from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. The piece described controversial new treatments available for transgender teens that put puberty on hold and prevent their bodies from developing into their biological sex. Smiley also was honored with a 2008 DART Award for "Escape from San Francisco" about a family that left town following the shooting of a star football player.

Joel Warner, Westword
It's getting hard to keep track of Warner's plaudits. His "Pot of Gold", about international coffee freaks, was a 2008 National Finalist in the Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards; his "You Do the Meth", which described the effects of meth raids on families, was a finalist for the 2008 DART Award; his "The Good Soldier", about the first American G.I. to be charged with cowardice since 1968, was a 2009 DART finalist and also won first-place for feature writing at the 2009 AltWeekly Awards.

Jared Jacang Maher, Westword
Like his Denver colleague Warner, Maher has received multiple awards. He took second-place in investigative reporting in the 2009 AltWeekly Awards for "State of Emergency", about problems with the City of Denver's ambulance system. His "The Impersonator", the bizarre true-life tale of a man who successfully impersonated a paramedic, got him named a 2007 finalist in the Livingston Awards. "The Magic Number", which revealed that identity fraud on the part of illegal aliens was disproportionately affecting Hispanic Americans, was a 2008 National Finalist in the Missouri Lifestyle contest.

Emily Witt, Miami New Times
"Band of Outsiders", the story of a Florida couple who had adopted 57 special-needs children, earned Witt a finalist slot in the 2007 Livingstons alongside Maher.

Ben Westhoff, Riverfront Times
"Ace of Spaides", which detailed St. Louis rapper Spaide R.I.P.P.E.R.'s rise from obscurity, won first-place in business reporting in the 2007 National Association of Black Journalists Awards.

Ben Paynter, The Pitch
A man named Shorty attempting to reform the frilly world of gay rodeo, was the subject of Paynter's "So You Wanna Be a Cowboy", which was selected for inclusion in the 2006 Best American Sportswriting Anthology.

Paul Kix, Dallas Observer
"Alone No More", about star hoopster Sandora Irvin's troubled path to the WNBA, earned Kix a first-place award for sports reporting in the 2006 NABJs.

Michael Serazio, Houston Press
For his story "Gambling on Iraq,", which exposed the dangers faced by ordinary American citizens signing up for war-zone jobs in Iraq, Serazio was named a 2005 Livingston finalist.

Malcolm Gay, Riverfront Times
Gay's "Eat Me" told how the USDA was making life difficult for boutique beef merchants, and earned him two national awards: a first-place in the 2005 James Beard Foundation Journalist Awards, and a Bert Greene Award.

Aina Hunter, Cleveland Scene
"Blue Mob" , Hunter's expose about a corrupt police department in an Ohio town, also impressed the Livingston judges, who made her a 2005 finalist.

Matthew Fleischer, LA Weekly
Fleischer's story "Navahoax," which revealed a remarkable scandal in the publishing industry, was a national finalist in the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors contest.

Bernice Yeung, SF Weekly
Yeung was a national finalist in the 2004 John Bartlow Martin Awards for Public Interest Magazine Journalism for her story "Innocence Arrested." Yeung also was a national finalist in the 2001 Martin contest for her article "Girl Problems." and in 2000 for her story "Opening Pandora's Box."

Jeremy Mullman, SF Weekly
Mullman was a finalist in the 2002 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists for his story "Rural Cleansing."

Julianna Barbassa, Dallas Observer
Barbassa was a national finalist in the 2000 Eugene S. Pulliam National Writing Awards for her story "Children of the Storm."

Emily Bliss, New Times Broward/Palm Beach
Bliss took second-place in the 2001 National Education Awards for Education Reporting for her story "A Scout For Life."

Jennifer Mathieu, Houston Press
Mathieu was a finalist in the 2002 GLAAD Media Awards for her article "Positive Love", and took first-place in the 2003 Alternative Newsweekly Awards "Media Reporting" category for the story "Reality TV Bites."