[Rey Katz]

Thanks so much, Amanda! I’m really excited to be working with you again and I really appreciate all your guidance and excellent and helpful feedback!

That’s a great interview with River Selby – despite the interviewer using “she” instead of “they” for River, but that’s pretty common – thanks for sharing. I mainly know River’s book which I was a beta reader for and then read the finished version also – that was a fascinating learning experience for me as a writer. Here’s an excerpt of the book published in Hippocampus, if you’re interested in an article-length bit of the book: https://www.hcn.org/issues/57-8/a-hotshots-search-for-belonging-among-the-flames/

I did look up my facts on Substack’s current pricing, and I was a little off – if a reader buys a subscription through the website on their computer, Substack still takes (only) 10%. But for their new feature – buying a subscription through the mobile app on iPhones – Apple Pay takes 30%.
In any case, I wouldn’t recommend Substack to anyone interested in paid subscriptions!

Thanks very much,
Rey

[Rey Katz]

NAME: Rey Katz

OCCUPATION: tech & marketing expert for founders, freelance journalist, newsletter publisher

PRONOUNS*: they/them

AGE: 35

HERITAGE: My dad immigrated to the US as a baby with his parents, Jews from Poland and/or Ukraine. My mom’s grandparents were from Romania and Hungary. I grew up in New Jersey and was taught very little about my family’s cultural heritage when I was a child.

LANGUAGES: English (fluent). I know Spanish at a very basic level and I am even more of a beginner in learning Japanese.

HOBBIES: Spending time outdoors. Martial arts (aikido).

HOMETOWN: A tiny rural town in New Jersey.

CURRENT LOCATION: Boston, MA

WRITING EXPERIENCE: I started writing for publication around 6 years ago as a freelance journalist and blogger. I don’t have a formal journalism background. I’ve learned a lot from classes including Pitch Like a Honey Badger and from editors who have been kind enough to work with me. I’ve been published in HuffPost, Popsugar, Catapult, and other publications. (My clips) I write a newsletter, Amplify Respect, to inform and uplift trans folks and allies.

FAVORITE WRITERS: River Selby, Lilly Dancyger, the folks in my writing group (Carmella, Melanie, Eileen, Laurie), Jennifer Lunden, anyone who writes YA LGBTQ+ novels

GOALS FOR THE COURSE:
I do a lot of traveling, relatively, and would love to write about my travels in a thoughtful and thought-provoking way. I want to avoid writing the “white tourist” articles about places among communities of color. I want to get better at creating a grounded sense of place in my writing, in my memoir manuscript, in my newsletter articles, and in pitching journalism.

My memoir in progress that I’ve been working on with my writing group is about coming of age as a non-binary martial artist. I get, so often, complaints that people do not know where or when I am talking about. Places in this work include my family’s home in rural NJ, Boston, Oakland, CA, Boston again, Nagoya, Japan, upstate NY, camping in the eastern Sierras in CA, etc. I move around a lot and would love to learn how to cue the reader as to where I am and what that place means to me at the time.

I’m also interested in pitching and writing travel pieces. One specific venue would be Conde Nast Traveler’s “stories about identity” section edited by Matt Ortile, who was previously at Catapult. https://www.cntraveler.com/info/how-to-pitch-conde-nast-traveler

I’d love to combine LGBTQ+ advocacy with a travel writing piece.

WRITING AMBITIONS: My ambitions as related to the course are to pitch a travel piece, and improve the sense of place in my newsletter articles and in my memoir draft.

WEBSITES & CONTACTS:
My newsletter, Amplify Respect, informs and uplifts trans people and allies: https://www.amplifyrespect.com
I’m on YouTube, trying to get back into creating video: https://www.youtube.com/@ReyKatzCreative
I’m also on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rey-katz/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/reywrites.bsky.social
Instagram: https://instagram.com/reywrite
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reywrites
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rreykatz/

[Rey Katz]

Ansley, I think this is good! It’s interesting, I went to the About page of this organization and the two people listed there had *very* general sounding bios in a similar tone to yours. If you don’t have publications to list, that is okay – I feel like I get a sense of what you write about based on this bio, which is cool. If you wanted to make it a bit more condensed, perhaps the sentence “Her work reflects the topics…” could be “She writes about agricultural heritage and traditional foodways.”

[Author]

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