"Jennifer Maerz" (speech story) 4/6/14

Jennifer Maerz is the Managing Producer at The Bold Italic, a San Francisco community site that encourages locals to get off their butts and do something awesome. She states, “I am an experienced content producer who can work in print and online and I have a talent in writing, editing, and sourcing new contributors to write for a publication. I am also interested in innovative ways to tell stories in media through written and visual formats and in forging connections with different, unique voices.”

Maerz explained Thursday to a USF feature writing class, that The Bold Italic is an online magazine, shop, and events hub in San Francisco. It publishes first person stories by locals on issues and topics that are on the brains and lips of San Franciscans.  She states that, “the views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of The Bold Italic, but they are the true opinions, experiences, and thoughts of writers from the diverse community we live amongst.” As she writes on the TBI website, “If you have a unique message that begs for to be told, get the attention of our audience through our website, blog, active social media channels, newsletter, and curated online shop.”

Maerz 40 is tall, with dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and four visible tattoos on each of her arms. She came in wearing a dark blue dress with yellow stockings and black-heeled ankle cut boots. A yellow bracelet hung around her wrist, while a large crystal took place around her neck. She also had long earrings and an engagement ring that fit perfectly on her ring finger. From first appearance she seemed tired from a long day, but at the same time was very enthusiastic about pitches or questions. She explained that she was a pop culture critic for many years, and has her work published for SF Weekly, Rolling Stone, Vice, and The New York Times. She has spent much of her adult life standing near stages and has been exposed to enough variations on the live music thing.

Maerz said The Bold Italic “started four years ago” as an “experimental publication,” from Gannett, one of the biggest newspaper chains in the country. Her writers need knowledge of social media outlets like, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others. She said she got many internships while in college in Santa Cruz- where she majored in creative writing and minored in journalism- and encouraged us to so the same. She started out with small publications, including an art and fashion Magazine where she became senior editor. For a while she wrote about music in Seattle, Washington. Later wrote for SF Weekly.

Asking about her age, she said she was 40, which surprised some members of the class- “I guess writing about music makes you very young.” She said stories for The Bold Italic vary from opinions, to personal essays, and videos. The demographics at The Bold Italic are people who range from 20 to 30 years olds. Working there you could see an even amount of females and males. They invite people from the outside or even find writers from the comment section. They need people who are social media savvy, have a strong personality, a good writer and are very online present.

She declined to talk about her salary, but did say her writers get, “$300 for an opinion piece.” Writers who have video and photographic skills are also welcome, the more experience one has the better they are for the job.

Once she got done with all our questions it was time for pitches. She answered everything thoughtfully and gave us good advice on why or why not our pitches were appropriate for The Bold Italic. Many had two or three pitches; I only had one it was, “Is Facebook or (social media) stalking your boss appropriate before applying for a job. She said it was a good pitch but it had a few problems, such as it was not what they were looking for, or that they had heard a similar story that was already published like that. I took her criticism into account for my future papers. After the clapping as the speech cam to a close, I introduced myself to her and gave her a handshake, thanking her for giving a terrific speech to the class. I may have mentioned I might drop by her office for further conversation after I graduate.