Tate Williams

Boston, MA USA
Website: http://www.tatewilliams.org
Contact

Professional Experience

Freelance writer and editor covering science, the environment, and culture. I have a background in journalism and nonprofits (grants and marketing materials), and I currently do a mix of blogging, narrative journalism, and copy editing. I write about a bunch of topics, including cities, conservation, climate change, activism, nonprofits, philanthropy, and some geeky stuff. I'm also a talented and experienced editor with a knack for both structure and detail.

Expertise

Editor
4 Years
Reporter
5 Years
Writer
7 Years

Specialty

Environment & Nature
5 Years
Philanthropy
3 Years
Science
3 Years

Industries


Online/new media
3 Years
Newspaper - Local/Regional
3 Years
Nonprofit
6 Years

Total Media Industry Experience

10 Years

Media Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)

Foundr Magazine (10+), Inside Philanthropy (10+), Open Media Boston (3-5), Souciant (3-5), Futures Exchange (3-5), Curbed National (3-5), American Forests Magazine (1-2), The Magazine (1-2), Private Air Magazine (1-2)

Corporate Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)

USPIRG/Environment America (3-5), The Oechsli Institute (1-2)

Other Work History

Current ongoing contracts include science & environment editor at Inside Philanthropy, and copy editor at Foundr Magazine. Previous staff jobs: • Grant writer and editor for The Public Interest Network. • Head of direct mail fundraising department for The Public Interest Network. • Reporter for the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix covering education.

Technical Skills

Comfortable publishing online on a variety of platforms, plus a bit of under the hood stuff. Intermediate skills with Adobe InDesign and MS Excel. Podcasting using Audacity, Amazon AWS, and Feedburner.

Computer Skills

MS Word, Excel, and Access. OSX, Libre Office, Squarespace, Wordpress, Drupal, Typepad, Adobe InDesign, Audacity, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Scrivener.

Equipment

MacBook Pro, Nikon point-and-shoot digital camera, digital voice recorder, Microsoft Office, Adobe InDesign, Scrivener, scanner/fax.

Awards

Donald Still Award for excellence at the Arizona Daily Wildcat, William Hattich Award for journalism professionalism, NASA science writing internship.

Showcase

Arts & Culture

Rent in an 1835 Textile Mill With a Labor Rights History
(Curbed National 4/18/2014)
The Boott Mills complex stretches along the Merrimack River like a fortress, a 179-year-old set of connected brick buildings that once housed roaring hydroelectric textile factories in the heart of Lowell, Mass. And it's making a comeback.
Death in Manhattan
(Souciant 2/4/2013)
Warren Ellis's latest novel Gun Machine is like a cop thriller set in a fever dream, twisted genre fiction that employs the conventions of a primetime police drama to investigate a series of brutal crimes, but also the bloody history of New York City itself.
Is There a Punk Aesthetic?
(Souciant 12/12/2012)
When editors Johan Kugelberg and Jon Savage took on the task of assembling a visual narrative of the punk aesthetic, they found it to be a difficult thing to capture, both logistically, because of the media's fleeting nature, and conceptually, because of its oppositional, apocalyptic impulse.
Mad Scientist Club
(The Magazine 6/19/2014)
In an otherwise unremarkable room at MIT, the published history of science fiction overflows.

Science & Environment

Modifying Nature (Humans Included) To Save It
(Futures Exchange (Curated Medium Collection) 12/22/2013)
Tiny people with cat eyes, and other preposterous ideas to save the planet.
Science Fiction Can Save Environmentalism
(Futures Exchange (Curated Medium Collection) 10/22/2013)
With public interest in the gutter, the green movement needs a shot of futurism.
The New Golden Age of Urban Parks Philanthropy (and its Controversies)
(Inside Philanthropy 9/19/2014)
Private funding is pouring into parks lately, and not everyone is happy about it. Regardless, cities are putting together creative projects with massive backing from wealthy donors, and it's not all happening where you might expect.
Why More Large Foundations Will Divest From Fossil Fuels
(Inside Philanthropy 9/23/2014)
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is the latest foundation to scrap its fossil fuel investments amid a broader shift by nonprofit institutions to align their endowments with their values. We'll be seeing more foundations move their assets away from carbon, and for good reasons.
What Should We Learn From a Dying Philanthropist?
(Inside Philanthropy 11/3/2014)
Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons, has terminal cancer, and in his remaining years is giving away his fortune to animals and wildlife. Philanthropy as a whole could learn a lot from him.
In the Garden Cemetery: The Revival of America's First Urban Parks
(American Forests Magazine 6/1/2014)
Overcrowded cities gave us the country's first garden cemeteries in the 1820s. But cemeteries were also our earliest city parks, and they're experiencing a revival as urban green spaces.
Washed Away
(The Magazine 9/11/2014)
The story of the Quabbin Reservoir is a persistent, haunting one. Four towns leveled, 2,500 people and 7,600 graves relocated, to clear the way for the massive reservoir that provides Boston with its drinking water.