Course Details

Freelance writers are the many-armed gods of journalism. They pitch, they write, they chase expense checks overdue since the Reagan administration. The Whole Freelancer is an intensive tutorial on the ins and outs of writing solo, from generating ideas and juggling assignments to battling procrastination, self-doubt and loneliness. Never before have there been so many opportunities to freelance. But it's also never been so competitive to write your way to the top of the pack.

This is a rigorous, time-intensive course that meets once a week for 8 weeks. The odd-numbered course sessions center around a writing assignment. Students are expected to report and write a magazine-ready 1,000-word piece that will be read aloud and critiqued (with brutal honesty) in class, along with a pitch letter. Assignments may include a profile, a personal essay, a travel piece and a business story. The even-numbered sessions focus on the bread-and-butter issues freelancers face: managing time, organizing, pitching, generating ideas, dealing with editors, making more money, and increasing your general happiness quotient.

Get ready to say goodbye to office life once and for all.

By the end of class, students can expect to have:
4 complete and edited 1,000-word articles with pitch letters, all ready to be sent out; an entirely new and thorough understanding of the freelancing as a lifestyle choice and as a business that you run yourself

Instructor Bio

Sally Lehrman's Courses

Sally Lehrman is an award-winning reporter and writer on medicine and science policy who has written for some of the top names in national print and broadcast media including Scientific American, Nature, Health, Salon.com, and the DNA Files, distributed by NPR. Her honors have included the 1995-96 John S. Knight Fellowship; a shared 2002 Peabody award, Peabody/Robert Wood Johnson Award for excellence in health and medical programming, and Columbia/Du Pont Silver Baton (for the DNA Files). She is author of News in a New America, a fresh take on developing an inclusive U.S. news media, and two chapters for textbooks on covering the sciences. She serves as at-large director and national diversity chair for the Society of Professional Journalists and is a USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism Expert Fellow on race. She works in her home office with her assistant Daisy, a Saint Bernard.

Testimonials

Sally's course was extremely valuable. She helped me pitch an article to Wired!. Sally ran the course as a workshop, was very organized, and gave terrific feedback. -- Michael Chorost, author of Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human

From Sally's class, I sold three assignments! The class was a constructive idea-generating environment that honed my editing skills to boot." -- Narasu Nebbapragada, freelance writer and technology magazine editor

"Not only was Sally's course an opportunity to share my work with a group of passionate, colorful, and opinionated individuals, it also provided guidance for packaging and selling my work." -- Paul Lee Cannon

"Sally's class was phenomenal. She has a huge amount of experience, which she shares to help you successfully pitch to and write for magazines, as well as to simply run the business side of a freelance career." -- Liza Boyd

"Sally brings enthusiasm and focus to her classes. I look forward to taking more classes from her in the future." -- Marie Watts, Adjunct Business Professor, Brooks College

"The environment Sally created was comfortable and supportive. She fostered a truly interactive experience." -- Bruce Johansen

"Sally presented useful, practical steps to preparing yourself for a freelance career. I now have blueprint and reference materials while I get my freelancing career off the ground." -- Joy Buchanan

"Sally helped me strengthen my writing, which resulted in not only several freelance gigs but also a widely-read book and a great job as editor of a Bay Area monthly." -- Lori Hope, author, editor, and speaker, lorihope.co