Carol Skolnick

Santa Cruz, CA USA
25 Years Experience

Professional Experience

I'm an award-winning direct-response copywriter and essayist who has written about a middle-aged affair for Salon.com; opined about topics both global and mundane for publications including WorkHomeYou.com and the Women's Independent Press; and aired my spiritual laundry for AHP Perspective, Noumenon Journal, Science of Mind, many anthologies, natural living publications worldwide, and several blogs. My best genres are promotional article writing and creative nonfiction; I have also published interview-style journalism and book reviews, and I am an award-winning direct response copywriter.

Expertise

Copywriter 30 YearsWriter 20 YearsOther, Specify 15 Years

Specialty

Humor 20 YearsWomen's Issues 20 YearsOther, Specify 7 Years

Industries

Advertising, client side 30 YearsBook Publishing Consumer 30 YearsNonprofit 15 Years

Media Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)

  • The English Journal (1-2)
  • The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas (1-2)
  • WritersWeekly.com (3-5)
  • Salon.com (1-2)
  • Changing Course (Seal Press) (1-2)
  • Pets Publishing (1-2)
  • Angel Cats (New World Library) (1-2)
  • Sasee (1-2)
  • Science of Mind (1-2)
  • SheKnows Diet & Fitness (1-2)
  • Women's Independent Press (10+)
  • Glamour (1-2)
  • Chocolate for a Woman's Dreams (Fireside Books) (1-2)
  • I Love Cats (1-2)
  • AKC Gazette (1-2)
  • Am I Teaching Yet? (Heinemann) (1-2)
  • WorkHomeYou.com (1-2)

Corporate Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)

  • Byron Katie International (6-10)
  • Readers Digest (3-5)
  • HotChalk Inc. (3-5)
  • American Management Association (10+)

Awards

WDMI "Jillies" - two-time finalist for direct response copy Focus Face-to-Face award for direct response mailing First prize nonfiction award, Buffalo Carp (literary magazine) 2nd prize fiction award, AKC Gazette 2nd prize award, Angel Cats

Associations

Mediabistro.com

Other Work History

10 years on staff in educational publishing (Scholastic Inc.) Published at Salon.com, Glamour, The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas, AKC Magazine, I Love Cats, The English Journal, AHP Perspective, Science of Mind, Sasee, natural living publications, anthologies

Technical Skills

Macromedia Contribute

Foreign Language Skills

French, some Spanish

Computer Skills

Word, Contribute, very basic html

Equipment

Mac laptop, digital camera

Humor

Swan Trache, or: Hair Apparent
(nakedumorists.com 1/1/2002)
On thinning hair and no-neck; humorous essay.
Dear Cake, It's Not Your Fault
(SheKnows Diet & Fitness 7/1/2006)
The New Yorker Said "Sorry" and Other Great Rejections in the Life of an Underpublished Author
(WritersWeekly.com 6/29/2005)
No assignments, but great rejection letters.

Article

Days of Awe: A Mindful Look at the Jewish High Holy Days
(Science of Mind Magazine 9/1/2008)
How I came to see the Jewish High Holy Days not simply as a solemn occasion of self-recrimination, but as a joyful reminder of the forgiving nature of the universe.
Byron Katie's Extreme (Internal) Makeover: Nine Days to a Kinder Mind
(BKI 5/1/2004)
"'Is it true that you're too fat?' the silver-haired woman pointedly asks a thirtyish man who is quite large by the world's standards; it is difficult for him to walk upstairs or even to breathe, and he has never had a relationship with a woman. He has just revealed his despair and self-disgust to a gathering of about 300 strangers...."
Uncooked Books: Why It's Okay to Write What You Think You Don't Know
(WritersWeekly.com 3/23/2005)
On not waiting for expert status in order to write authoritatively.
Love (and Enlightenment) American Style
(New Connexion 9/1/2002)
"Byron Katie, founder of a remarkable self-inquiry process called The Work and author of "Loving What Is," had an extraordinary "spiritual awakening" in the midst of an ordinary small-town American life. But what makes The Work of Byron Katie so radical is that it's so simple, so un-mystical, so straightforward, so...American."
To Tell the Truth (p. 1)
(WHY 3/1/2008)
For small business and entrepreneurs: arguments for and against revealing rates and fees upfront.
To Tell the Truth (p. 2)
(WHY 3/1/2008)

Personal Essay

I Am Not My Diagnosis
(Anchor Magazine 9/15/2008)
How questioning the punishing beliefs I held about myself and others stopped cold my tendency to justify, defend, adn bat away anything that didn't support my life-long story of depression and disaster.
What I Thought Happened, Didn't
(Sasee 3/1/2008)
Rhe author Byron Katie has famously said, “Forgiveness means that what you thought happened, didn’t.” What had happened between my oldest and dearest friend and myself? A difference of opinion, and the tragedies we built out of that misunderstanding. Could I put those stories behind me?
An American Character on the American Character
(Women's Independent Press 11/11/2004)
What is the true character of the American people? Reflections post-9/11 and Abu Ghraib.
Pretending Us
(Salon.com 8/20/2001)
Existential musings on middle-aged sex. Called "soft porn pap" by the illustrious Andrew Sullivan. You decide.
The Story About Adele
(Drexel Online Journal 7/1/2004)
Personal essay about the inevitability of outgrowing one's teachers and mentors.