Unpaid Internships of My Life

Norfolk, Virginia. Summer after first year of college, interned at hometown alt weekly. Went a couple afternoons a week. Or maybe every day. Don’t remember that part. Do remember answering phones, being really nervous about doing phone interviews, reporting some things, being pretty bored. Called a woman about a flea market in a parking garage. Wrote an article about sex ed in schools. In the mornings I worked at a summer school program for special ed kids, which was fun and also paid me. Then I went and sat in an office which was not that fun and didn’t pay me.

Los Angeles, Calif. After college, moved to L.A. and got internship with production company/literary agency. Lived at time off money from American Apparel and also money from my parents because I graduated a year early and they decided to support me for a few months while I found a job in L.A. Went to Coffee Bean, answered phones, read the slush pile, made lots and lots of copies. Offices were on Santa Monica Promenade, “a mall,” so also developed habit of lunchtime shopping excursions. Based on this experience, (wrongly) decided writing a screenplay was easy and would be best way to make money one day. Still kind of believe that. Still wrong.

Portland, Ore. Was working as a florist and felt like something was missing in my life — that something being working for other people for no money. Became intern at Portland Mercury. Transcribed editors’ interviews. Updated events calendars (data entry). Wrote blog posts. Went to one community meeting to report on community’s reaction to beloved Chinese restaurant in historic building being turned into a bank (community did not like). Wrote some movie reviews, including one that I compared to a shitty student film and then the director commented and linked to all these other glowing reviews, ha. Got paid when they printed my stuff in the paper issue, which was exciting and led me to believe that writing for money was kind of easy and something you could just kind of fall into when you were bored (ha).

Photo: Parker Knight

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