LP Applies, Associate Editor

A recent cover letter:

I’m applying through Mediabistro.com for the Modern Materials Handling Associate Editor position. I enjoyed Ms. Kator’s “Protective Packaging Basics” article in a recent issue online; I’m sorry she is leaving, but excited by the open opportunity at Modern Materials Handling.

Like Ms. Kator, I’ve a history with the University of Washington. In 2006, I earned an editing certificate from the university’s extension program. I then interned at a local design magazine in Seattle. After the internship, I continued freelancing as a writer for the magazine, as an editor for Earshot Jazz magazine, and as a retail catalog proofreader for REI. I’ve had steady proofreading business since moving to Somerville in January. You can learn more about my editorial history at my LinkedIn profile.

Links to my editorial resume and my blog about freelancing are at my Mediabistro portfolio. In addition to service pieces for homeowners and custom advertisements there, a recent proofreading sample titled “Custom Trifold Proofread” will interest you. This U.S. EPA compliance document has much the same goal as MMH: to improve the supply chain, in this case, by providing informative content to consumers of drinking water. I enjoyed editing those documents.

Some of my qualifications don’t come from editorial experience. I worked as a Pizza Delivery
Driver (that’s materials handling) and as a Retail Warehouse Shipping Manager. Some of my Shipping Manager successes are listed on my attached resume, but let me share with you one management story that illustrates why I’m fit to bring content to the MMH audience to help them understand and improve their link in the chain:

I once rounded up our small shipping staff on a slow day for an impromptu field trip to Seattle’s new Terminal 5, where some of our imported goods were. A tour organizer accepted, on short notice, my request to tour. Some memorable moments from the tour were seeing Eastern Washington onions for export in containers with doors removed to prevent rot; being dwarfed by facility equipment while driving the grounds in the director’s minivan; and being x-rayed when crossing secure pier boundaries.

Thanks for taking the time to review my application.

I know, it's not a freelance project. Maybe one day I'd like to get paid for Independence Day, okay?

The best part of that cover letter, zero bullshit. Albeit maudlin fascination, I enjoy infrastructure. I share with the Deco artists of yore an awe before the human machine.

As always, your thoughts in comments.