Celebrating Success Stories at GameSkinny!

One of the goals of GameSkinny is to give writers valuable skills and experience with measurable metrics that they can add to their resume. 

As you can tell by the header image, Photoshop is totally one of those skills.

Whether writing on their own or as part of our Journalist Training Program (JTP), many of our members use their experience with us to pursue opportunities with other companies, landing positions as freelance writers, community managers, editors, and even designers! Sometimes, we even nab members and JTP participants to join our freelance team or staff here at GameSkinny.

In this post, we’ll celebrate just a few of the writers who have used their GameSkinny experience to advance their career goals because we’ll take any excuse to throw confetti. And hopefully their stories will be valuable to writers who aspire to fame on, and off, GameSkinny. 

This post mostly highlights our former JTP members because they are the easiest to track down! If you’re a GameSkinny user and would like to share your own success story, email Auverin[at] GameSkinny.com.

We’ve had interns go on to work for other outlets and companies in roles like:

• Staff and freelance writers
• Editors
• Social media
• Marketing
• Public Relations

Here are just a few:

Lauren Puga

Lauren first joined up with the JTP in January of 2014 and stayed on with us until May 2014. Lauren is a VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) graduate with a BFA in Graphic Design and a minor in Media Studies. After the JTP, Lauren wrote for LevelSave and wrote a guest-spot feature for The Mary Sue before moving into a role as The Washingtonian’s Digital Media Intern, and finally working for IGN.com as a freelancer writer.

When asked about the JTP’s role in her success, Lauren responded:

“I’d say you’d be surprised at what kinds of jobs the JTP prepares you for. Even if you’re not sure about a career in games journalism, you’ll leave the program with so many lucrative skills you wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

“Who knew my experience using Google Analytics and mastering SEO would land me a job in digital media.”

Michael Chiu

Michael is games and writing hobbyist who joined the JTP in between rounds as a venture capitalist in early 2015. While Michael is older and more experienced than our typical JTP intern, he made the most out of his time in the program and still learned a lot while he was here. Since the program, Michael’s sharpened writing skills allowed him the opportunity to write in a science and technology journal

After the program, Michael was excited to mention:

As for writing, I have definitely improved through JTP, and have been invited to be a featured writer in a Taiwanese-American Science & Technology journal, writing about consumer electronics/tech and Internet of Things.

I think the JTP is a great entry point for people aspiring to be good writers in the video game business. As many know, gamers are very passionate about their hobby, and the JTP provides an outlet for them to express their opinions and to share their knowledge for just about anything related to video games.

Michael Falero

A recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Michael joined us in early 2015 as a single-session JTP member and quickly excelled. With one session under belt, Michael took his experience with him into a second internship as a Social Media Marketer for PDFfiller, a startup located just outside of Boston, MA.

Kaitlin Silver

Kaitlin was an early JTP intern, back in 2013, back when we still had smaller teams of interns. She did a great job here for the duration of the JTP in a social media role. After GameSkinny, Kaitlin moved on to managing social media for TheGamerStudio and is now an Inbound Marketing Manager at Boyle Public Affairs in McLean, VA.

Krystina Butler

After her first JTP session, Krystina moved up to the newly created Senior Intern role, where she helped newer JTP members by providing advice, researching news and editorial headlines, and writing great articles to lead by example.

Within only a few weeks in her new role, Krystina found herself with too many opportunities! Krystina departed from GameSkinny as an Executive Editor of the Willow Literary Journal, as an Underwriting Assistant at Allied International Holdings, and as a Writer/Editor at Brilliantly Epic. When she announced her departure from GameSkinny, she was quick to add:

“This may not be the last that you will see from me, I may find myself missing GS too much.”

Steve Booker (Synzer) – GS Freelance Writer

Steve, or Synzer as he more popularly known, has been with GameSkinny for a long time. After several JTP sessions, Synzer graduated on to become one of, if not, our most successful in-house writers on GameSkinny. He is well-known for his well-constructed, well-formatted, and well-researched game guides, and his work has been dominating the “top articles” section of the site for longer than we can remember!

Kate Reynolds – GS Freelance Writer

Kate has been writing on GameSkinny as part of the JTP and later as a freelancer since early 2014. Kate proved herself early as an adept writer and journalist and eventually started her own blog K8MonstrsCloset in between GameSkinny assignments.

Danielle DeNicola – GS Freelance Writer

Danielle has been around GameSkinny since early 2014 when she first participated in the JTP. After a few brief but highly successful sessions, she was offered a position with GS as a freelance writer. Danielle has a knack for researching traffic-trending topics and using social media, two skills that helped her succeed with high numbers of page views on GameSkinny and eventually make her way into Barter Rewards, Inc. as a Marketing Director. 

Danielle has also become a successful gaming cosplayer in her free time.

Amanda Wallace – Associate Editor

Our fearsome night-time Associate Editor, Amanda, was also once a JTP member. Amanda had been with the program for several months before being offered a position on our freelance team. After a few months of freelance work, Amanda proved her mettle in the chaos of PAX East 2014 and displayed herself to be the ideal candidate to fill a job vacancy as Associate Editor of GameSkinny.

Amanda is an accomplished writer with impressive work in Unwinnable Weekly and Medium and runs her own, home-brewed interactive fiction website Storycade. Amanda is also an active indie game developer, participating in many game jams, including Train Jam and Ludum Dare.

Jay Ricciardi – Senior Editor & JTP Coordinator

Yes, I count too! I first joined GameSkinny as one of the very first JTP interns in 2013, back when I had just graduated from the University of Rochester with dual degrees in English and Film Media Studies. I participated for several JTP sessions (including the first ever ‘Beta’ session) and was ultimately hired as an Associate Editor here at GameSkinny. Then, after nearly a year of editing nights and weekends, I finally had the opportunity to advance to full-time as GameSkinny’s Staff Editor & JTP Coordinator. Most recently, after our former Editor-in-Chief stepped down, I took on the mantle of Senior Editor and absorbed many of her duties.

I now teach today’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed JTP interns in the ways of games journalism, I write articles like this, and I coordinate our lean and mean team of freelance writers.

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