Dear Steemit Community:
I wanted to do a better job of introducing myself. My name is Will Levith, and I'm a writer. Since I've got a bit of room here, I'd like to tell you the whole story of how I got where I did -- and here, I guess.
Jump in this time machine and key in October 31, 2003. Boom!
There's the 23-year-old me, sitting at my father's desk in that darkly lit English department office suite at Skidmore College, staring at his computer screen. I've been looking for jobs on Monster.com for about an hour, and I've fucking had it. HAD IT. When you're 23 and looking for jobs on Halloween night, you know something's gotta be wrong. What that wrongness was was I had just come home from a year abroad in Madrid, Spain, living with cool expats, teaching English, taking siestas, drinking loads of wine, and for the most part, loving life. And now, here I was, back in the states, living with my parents, under their rule of law again after five years of freedom (here, I'm counting the four years I spent at Connecticut College prior to leaving for Europe). This in-vein job searching was being done so I could regain that freedom, see? It was my golden ticket out of there. I was desperate. And desperation sometimes leads to inspiration.
That night, after gorging myself on the toxic pus that was Monster.com, I opened up a Word document and began to write:
Dear Editor at Rolling Stone magazine:
Hi, my name is Will Levith, and my dream is to be a writer at your magazine. I'll do anything to get a job there. ...
That was the basic gist of the letter. After my grandmother had bought me a subscription to Rolling Stone for my 13th birthday -- I believe Green Day was on the first cover I owned -- I became obsessed with the idea of someday writing for the magazine. I read that oversized motherfucker from cover to cover. I came to know each of its sections and became familiar with the voice of its writers. I really liked David Fricke, who would use this ridiculously dorky music-worship-speak. Like "That hydrogen-bomb-detonation of a track on the new Son Volt record ..." or that "lysergic guitar tone from the Byrds' Roger McGuinn." I also really dug Jenny Eliscu's stuff. She seemed to always be getting all of these incredible interviews with incredible bands. And she'd also get a jump on who was going to be the next big thing before anyone else on Earth did. So I decided that that was where I wanted to work. Because people like David and Jenny were my kindred spirits.
I printed out that first draft of a letter, edited it a bunch of times, and came up with a final draft. Then I made 10-15 copies of it, replacing the "Editor at Rolling Stone magazine" after the "Dear" with every single editors name in the magazine's masthead (i.e. that roll call a few pages into the magazine that has the publisher Jann Wenner's name followed by everybody on staff). Then I printed all of them out, signed my name at the bottom in pen, borrowed a bunch of stamps from my mother, and posted them all.
Look, I didn't think in a million years I'd hear back from any of these people. I figured, "What do I really have to lose by sending this letter to them?" They could open it and read it. They could see it, and immediately throw it out, thinking it was a prison correspondence or something. Or they could read it, sit on it, and potentially call me. (I had put my new cell phone number at the bottom, along with my Hotmail email address and other forms of contact information.)
Several weeks later, I had parked my car in downtown Saratoga Springs (where I was living at the time) on the top deck of a parking garage along Phila Street for I can't remember what purpose, and as I was walking back to my car and noticed I had a message on my phone. Why hadn't I noticed the phone ringing? I called my voicemail number, and a stranger started speaking: "Hi, Will, this is Amelia from Rolling Stone. Jenny Eliscu forwarded your letter to me, and I'd like to bring you down to New York City to interview for an internship position. Call me back, and we'll schedule something. Have a great day!"
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
SHIT.
I remember just sort of raising my arms above my head and yelling, "YES!" or something clichéd like that, and then driving home on the top of the world.
I'll conclude this story in my next post.
(Photo by Dustin Cohen)