Nerdy Work Issue #2: The Rebranding

More opportunities, new friends

Welcome to the second issue of Nerdy Work!

Wait, is that a new name?

Yes it is! Allow me to explain. I changed the name of the newsletter for two main reasons:

1. I liked this pun better

2. Jobs oftentimes suck. They can be boring, unfulfilling, and stifling. Work should be rewarding. Work is both a verb and a noun — Shakespeare didn’t produce great jobs, he produced great works. We should be proud of what we make, even if it doesn’t net us money (though all work for others should be paid!).

OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me introduce you to our new mascot!

This charming, ambitious, optimistic nerdy dinosaur (name TBD!) was designed for us by Nerdy Work subscriber Liz Lathem. We worked together every step of the way and it was a great experience! Check out her portfolio here!

Two more quick things:

• Here is this week’s question for the comment section: What is one thing you’re really proud of making or accomplishing during this pandemic/quarantine?

  • It can be anything — some kind of work (a drawing, an article, a photo, a tweet, etc.) or something you did in your personal life (volunteered, focused on your mental health, called your friends more, etc). Remember to include your Twitter handle — mine is @JordanZakarin!

• I want to offer as much as possible with this newsletter. The job listings email will always be free, but would you be willing to pay a few bucks a month for a premium subscription that includes weekly bonus issues packed with Q&As, industry insights, and interviews and advice from big names in the geeky arts, entertainment, publishing, and tech fields?

  • I can’t embed a poll here, so if you could answer this in the comments too, that’d be awesome!

OK, now to the week’s opportunities!

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Writing and Editing and Social *Content*

• Creative Story Editor at Crazy Maple Studios (San Francisco, CA):

  • “We're looking for several full-time, superstar story editors to work on a successful narrative mobile game. You'll be working with a team of other story editors and freelance contract writers to adapt licensed popular fiction stories into interactive narratives that target a young female audience.

    This position involves extensive editorial work, a good amount of creative writing, and tasks related to formulating the creative direction of the selected stories.”

• Staff Writer, Pop Culture at Complex Networks (New York, NY):

  • “We are looking to hire an experienced Staff Writer to join our Pop Culture channel within the Editorial Department. The Staff Writer will be responsible for crafting timely pitches related to the pop culture world and thoughtfully exploring angles that will resonate with the Complex audience.”

• Staff Writer at Vanity Fair (New York, NY):

  • “Vanity Fair is seeking a smart, savvy pop culture obsessive to cover television, streaming, film, and awards season for HWD, the magazine's online hub for entertainment news and commentary. 

    Our ideal candidate is sharp, self-motivated, and versatile enough to write everything from breaking news stories to reported features and conversation-driving opinion pieces…”

• Staff Writer at The Takeout (Chicago, IL):

  • “Alongside the editor in chief and associate editor, you will shape and evolve The Takeout’s singular voice in food media. We like to publish stories that are practical and utilitarian, we satiate curiosity, and often we aim to surprise our readers. 

• Staff Writer at The AV Club (Los Angeles, CA):

  • “Staff Writer is a key position at The A.V. Club, working across all sections to produce strategic coverage of pop culture. This is primarily a writing position with an eye toward timely content, with the ability and willingness to pitch in on reviews and long-form content as required. A Staff Writer should have strong editorial skills and be able to work with freelance and in-house staff as needed. They must have deep pop culture knowledge in multiple verticals, as well as a strong voice and clean copy, and the ability to communicate and work well with every single person on staff".”

• Dating Writer at Elite Daily (Remote):

  • “Elite Daily is seeking a Dating Writer who is obsessed with celebrity relationship news and dating culture. Interested applicants should be equally comfortable writing news stories and evergreen dating stories, and should be well-informed about celebrity culture, reality dating shows (particularly The Bachelor and its spinoffs), astrology, and what dating looks like in 2020.”

Seeking Pitches: 

• Nerdist: Nerdist is always open to feature pitches on current and upcoming movies and shows, and also takes pitches for fun stuff like lists and guides. More info here.

• Observer (this is me, again):

  Jordan Zakarin @jordanzakarin

  I’m going to try a new series at @observer’s Innovation section. 2020 has been a disaster, but also revealed new challenges & accelerated changes. So, what will 2025 look like? I’m looking journalists and futurists to make predictions, in writing. Pitch: JZakarin@observer.com

• Unbreakable Anthology: “Looking for pitches for the next volume in the Unbreakable Anthology, a collection of Asian myth- and folklore-themed adventures written for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.” More info here.

• Fanbyte: “Looking for a freelancer to write around 10-15 guides for either Assassin's Creed: Valhalla or Yakuza: Like a Dragon.” More info here.

• Flametree Press: “We are delighted to announce a new call for submissions which is now open! We are looking for twelve to twenty short stories by black contemporary writers to complement a selection of core classic tales by early black writers of speculative fiction.” More info here.

• Audubon: “Looking for writers for an ongoing series of profiles about overlooked figures who helped shape North American birding, environmental, and conservation history.” More info here.

Video Production, Digital Production, and Post-Production

• Script Writer at Mashable (New York, NY):

  • “Mashable is seeking a story editor to join a growing team of creative digital video storytellers in New York City. The position is one of clear, simple communication, writing and editing short scripts that make complex topics like science and technology easy to understand with clear, strong language.”

• Script Writer at Filmless (Remote):

  • “We’re looking for flexible, creative, and ambitious copywriters to write, edit and review video scripts. You must be able to generate great ideas and write scripts/treatments for a wide variety of client’s products and services. Must be able to develop concepts, storyboards, and write script content for various types of videos (explainer, promo, and interview style videos).”

• Senior Digital Content Creator at Serendipity Works (Los Angeles, CA):

  • “We're hiring a Digital Content Creator/Creative Director ‘jack of all trades’ to work alongside the CEO to produce all of our projects. Responsibilities include: Photo and video editing and finishing (color grading, touchup, sound design, mixing); serving as videographer and photographer for smaller shoots; developing motion graphics elements; and design static and motion assets.”

• Lighting Artist at Magnopus (Los Angeles, CA):

  • “We are seeking an experienced lighting artist who is at home developing and implementing lighting designs that can run the gamut from theatrical to realistic, can demonstrate a willingness to collaborate with others, and has a keen understanding of the key role that color and lighting play in storytelling.”

• Writer/Producer at HBO (New York, NY):

  • “Home Box Office, Inc. seeks a Writer Producer - NS for the HBO General Inc. - Creative Services department.”

Art, Drawing, Graphic Design

• Marketing Production Artist at Private Division (New York, NY):

  • “The role will work with marketing’s production team, and teams across Private Division and Take-Two (production, social media, developers, operations). The position will also partner with external creative partners to visually support our growing catalog of games.”

• Character Designer at Netflix (Los Angeles, CA):

  • “We are seeking Character Designers for 2D and/or CG  animated series, features, and exciting things in between. Character Designers develop and establish the look, tone, appeal and design of characters that fit within a story or world. Through research, design exploration, conversations and collaboration, character designers will work with the creative leads to develop the attitudes, personality, costumes and poses.  We are seeking artists with both unique and technical styling and skills that will bring our projects to life.”

• Storyboard Artist at Summerfall Studios (Remote):

  • This role is a full-time, 6 month remote contract. You will be working with us to bring Chorus’ characters and world to life, assisting with visual production, particularly focused on storyboarding and inking. We are looking for someone who can replicate Chorus: An Adventure Musical’s graphic novel inspired-style quickly and effectively, and bring their own talent and inspiration to bear.

Submissions, Opportunities, and Seeking Artists:

• Anime Expo: Hosting a 30th anniversary fan art contest. More info here.

• The Wizard’s Nook:

🅱ouse🅱eenux @BouseFeenux_TV

Hey folks, I'm looking at redesigning my store logo for use on some new play mats and I need an artist. I have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for, just need the right person for the job! 100% down to discuss rates etc.

• Harley Anderson Illustration Agency:

  DA Illustration Agency @Illustration_da

  Welcome to the Darley Anderson Illustration Agency's new twitter page! We're now open for business and actively looking for new talent 🙌 Be sure to check out our new website for more information on how to submit and to take a look at our clients' work 👀 darleyandersonillustration.com

  

  DA Children's Agency @DA_Childrens

  🚨 We have BIG NEWS 🚨 We’ve opened a new agency, @Illustration_da! Our new arm will focus solely on illustrators across both children’s and adults’ lists. Head over to our shiny new website for submissions guidelines and our clients' portfolios👇 https://t.co/DjvnieaOV2

Social Media, Marketing and Communications

• Social Media Manager for Star Wars at Disney (San Francisco, CA):

  • “The Social Media Manager for Star Wars is responsible for planning, management, coordination and execution across all official Star Wars social media channels. This role will maintain the integrity of franchise social content while managing a Social Media Strategist, and will work together to innovate and stay ahead of trends.

    Additionally, this Social Media Manager will work across many teams, including but not limited to the Central Marketing Group, Lucasfilm Online and Video Team, as well as all multiple stakeholders and business partners across the company.”

• Social Media Manger at Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx, NY)

  • The Social Media Manager will work closely with the Director of Marketing as well as the creative team to drive awareness, consideration/engagement and conversion of ticket attendance, membership, products and events among key consumer targets. They will be responsible for the overseeing the annual social strategy to day-to-day execution and optimization of campaigns that generate consumer revenue across the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo brands.”

• Community Growth and Relations at Carbonated Games (El Segundo, CA):

  • “What you’ll do: Grow our audience size and engagement to hundreds of thousands of players (and more!), primarily by using your love of games and pop culture to create funny and engaging content via memes and animated gifs … Focus our community on Discord but also maintain a strong presence wherever they are … Interact with the audience via game related content, dev updates, polls, and anything our audience might be interested in (and more)…”

• Associate Manager, Digital Content at Simon & Schuster Children's Books (New York, NY):

  • “We are searching for an Associate Manager, Digital Content to manage digital and social asset production and website maintenance for our digital marketing department. This role is perfect for someone extremely organized, creative, detail-oriented, proactive, and communicative who thrives in a collaborative, fast-paced environment and has experience working with designers to create digital/social content.”

• Content Curation & Social Media Manager at Museum of Ice Cream (New York or Remote):

  • “We are seeking an innovator - someone who is willing to imagine new ways to authentically translate our love for ice cream and the joy and connection it brings to our past, present, and future guests. You will build a robust content program and craft its content to share our vision and stories with the world. Along the way, you will take risks, learn, and optimize as you engage and build our following and influence.”

Game Design and Technical Skills

• 3D Artist at Blizzard Entertainment (Los Angeles, CA):

  • “The Hearthstone team is looking for a 3D modeler with a focus on environment and other non-character assets. Your many talents and creativity will help continue to add quality art to Hearthstone in a way that continues to build on the handcrafted/illustrative feel to the game that we are known for.”

• Gameplay Programmer at Hopoo Games (Seattle, WA):

  • “Duties will include: Coding new content within the existing Risk of Rain 2 codebase, including new items, monsters behaviors, abilities, and more; design and create new features when needed to support new designs and ideas; develop and maintain core game systems with other programmers to keep the codebase sustainable.”

• Character Artist at High Voltage (Hoffman Estates, IL):

  • “High Voltage is searching for a highly skilled Character Artist to collaborate with the art team to develop heroes and enemies. In this role, you will create top-quality characters for use in gameplay, cinematics, and marketing material.”

Companies With Lots of Jobs Open

• Activision (for multiple studios)

• Netflix

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OK, that’s it for now! Remember to answer the questions I asked above in the comments! To refresh your memory, here it is again:

• What is one thing you’re really proud of making or accomplishing during this pandemic/quarantine?

  • It can be anything — some kind of work (a drawing, an article, a photo, a tweet, etc.) or something you did in your personal life (volunteered, focused on your mental health, called your friends more, etc). Remember to include your Twitter handle — mine is @JordanZakarin!