Boston Chapter Highlights: 1981-2012

1981: Hundreds of writers attend the Boston Chapter’s founding conference, keynoted by poet Marge Piercy, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  Steve Turner is the Boston Chapter’s first chair; feminist author Andrea Eagan is the union’s first president;

1983: Boston holds a forum on Freelance Reporting on International Hotspots. Chris Hedges, John Dinges speaking on reporting on Chile, Nicaragua, and other areas in turmoil.

1984: Magazine writers, led by John Junkerman, Tom Kiely, Alfie Kohn and David Goodman, launch a mass grievance against New Age magazine and recover $30,000 owed 50 freelancers. Boston Chair Nancy DuVergne Smith holds meetings on pitfalls in negotiating contract, pros and cons of working with wordprocesors and a tax seminar.

1985: Journalists research and publish a Survey of New England Publications, listing pay and policy at 39 New England newspapers and magazines. Debra Cash and Barbara Goldoftas spearhead the project, which leads to seven publications agreeing to pay freelancers on acceptance of their articles, rather than on publication. John Junkerman and Sandra Fraley are elected co-chairs.

1986: Boston wins important grievances: $4,000 for 30 writers owed back pay by Whole Life Times and $700 in back royalties for Roberta Kalechefsky, whose book on John Orwell was reprinted by Ungar as a paperback without the author being notified or paid. Barbara Beckwith and John Junkerman serve as co-chairs.

1987: Boston launches a letter-writing campaign that wins an exemption for writers and artists from restrictive provisions of the Tax Reform Act. Eve LaPlante parlays her success in getting the Boston Globe pay her for an article the newspaper reprinted in its education supplement, by insisting that all 13 freelancers are also paid for their reprints. The Globe declares that it will pay for reprints in the future.

1988: NWU and Ploughshares agree to terms negotiated by the literary journal’s contributors, in an organizing drive led by Nancy DuVergne Smith, Peter Keville, and Sandra  Storey, with the support of Ploughshares editor Amy Hoffman. Our Journalism Committee publishes The Insiders Guide to Freelancing in New England, detailing freelance terms offered by 100 newspapers and magazines, with in-depth critiques of the 20 top  publications. We announce awards for specific types of good treatment of writers, to Atlantic, Harrowsmith, Harvard magazine, and Technology Review,  and awards for specific types of poor treatment to the Boston Business Journal, Phoenix, Boston Woman, and the New England Monthly. New Hampshire and Western Mass sublocals are launched.

1989: One hundred Boston members come out in a rainstorm to protest death threats being made against British author Salman Rushdie, and to object to Barnes & Noble and B Dalton bookstores’ removal of his novel, Satanic Verses, from their shelves. After NWU demonstrations in four cities, the chain bookstores agree to return Rushdie’s book to their shelves. Over 550 writers attend the first For Love and Money writers’ conference: the $13,000 raised is shared with the national NWU and the Western MA sublocal. Rick Friedman serves as acting chair;  Charles Thiesen is then elected chair. Boston’s grievance committee wins 12 grievances over a 12-month period. 

1990: Our chapter launches a Job Bank, administered by Paul Korzeniowski, a Meet the Editor series, organized by Susan Pollack and Edith Pearlman, and our annual Writers Life series, co-sponsored by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education and focused on working as a writer in Boston. Yleana Martinez is now series advisor; Charles Coe is moderator.

1991: Members start a Gay and Lesbian Caucus, which holds professional programs and social/networking events, organized by Candace Van Auken. The union’s all-day For Love and Money conference, with keynote Toni Cade Bambara, draws 500 writers.

1992: We organize, along with other NWU locals around the country, a Writers Rights Day, holding a rally and speak-out in front of the Massachusetts State House.  Vermont members organize a sublocal.

1993: Our second Writers Rights Day takes stands on issues such as new technologies-good and bad, work-for-hire, censorship by exclusion, and publishing for writers of color. Our Gay and Lesbian Caucus speaks at OutWrite93, where Boston Chapter member John Preston is keynote. Charles Coe and Yleana Martinez organize a program for writers of color: Maintaining Your Integrity. Our Poetry-on-The-T  project, organized by Vanda Sendzimir, arranges for poems by Boston poets to be posted on the T. Our Political Issues Committee, led by Bob Chatelle, fires off letters on a wide range of issues, including the banning of books such as Anne Brashler’s  Christian recovery book  and Leslea Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies.

1994: Elaine Gottlieb leads monthly contract trainings for journalists. We hold a mini-conference on Writing in the Electronic Age, organized by Jason Pramas. Our leaders are in demand as keynote speakers:  Charles Thiesen (Children’s Book Writers) and Jason Pramas (Maine Writers and Publishers).

1995: Chapter now has an office, staffed by Jason Pramas. For Love and Money conference keynote is Alix Kates Shulman.  Amy Rothman is chair.  The Vermont sublocal holds a mini-conference featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers.

1996: We co-sponsor, with Boston University, the first Narrative Journalism conference, organized by Mark Kramer. We also offer a Book and Agent Contract seminar. We publish From Idea to Article: Twelve Freelancers Tell How They Broke Into Magazines and Money: Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, and Other Major Publications, edited by Barbara Beckwith and Barbara Mende.

1997: Journalists Elijah Wald, Debra Cash and Jeff Kantrowitz organize opposition to the Boston Globe’s attempt to take freelance contributors’ copyright. The Globe eventually backs down. We co-sponsor, with the Boston Association of Black Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association, a CyberRights, CyberWrongs: Challenges We Face panel. We distribute a Database of Book Publishers, Agents and Editors Who Have Handled Books by Writers of Color, compiled by Barbara Beckwith, who with Wendy Seadia, also organizes Query Swaps for journalists. Charles Coe organized writers of color potlucks.

1998: We offer in-depth professional workshops on Radio Essays & Commentary: Writing for WBUR, with Leslie Brunetta and Marcia Yudkin, and on Writing for the Computer Press, with Anne Stuart. Our Writers Life topics include travel and adventure writing, and Culture and Ethnicity as Sources of Inspiration. Western New England’s Write Angles conference focuses on how writers can branch out into new genres, technologies and markets.


1999: The Boston Chapter funds the NWU’s first online Member Networking Directory to connect members around the country: 440 members share bio blurbs and contact info. Our second Meet the Agents allows members to meet Boston’s top literary agents.

2000: The Boston Globe imposes a rights grab contract, this time retroactive to past articles contracted under First North American Serial Rights terms. Freelancers organize, as in 1996, and file a class-action lawsuit charging unfair business practices. Over the next four years, NWU members along with freelance photographers picket Globe-sponsored events until a Superior Court judge, while acknowledging the unfairness, dismisses the case because he can find no state statute on which to rule in the plaintiffs’ favor.

2001: In response to 9/11, we organize a program with Kaleel Sakakeeny on “An Arab-American Writer in the Mainstream.” We come on strong against the Globe’s electronic rights grab, in a program, co-sponsored by PEN New England, with Christopher Lydon moderating. Peter Desmond organizes a poetry reading to support the Harvard students sit-in to demand a “living wage” for janitors.

2002: We lobby state legislators on legislation affecting writers/artists.  We offer three in-depth workshops: 1. Non-fiction Book Proposals, with editors and agents, organized by Sarah Wernick, 2. Memoir Writing, with Richard Hoffman, and 3. Beyond the Book panel, organized by Christopher Kenneally.

2003: We leaflet Boston Globe events for four straight weeks to support Globe freelancers’ protest of the newspaper’s retroactive e-rights grab. We collaborate: with PEN New England, the Writers Room, Grub Street, and the Women’s Book Association on a “Writers Creating Community” mini-conference.

2004: We support the Massachusetts Affordable Health Care Campaign with letters and lobbying. We hold an in-depth workshop, led by co-chair Barbara Beckwith, on essay writing and marketing.

2005: We continue demonstrations in support of Globe freelancer writers and photographers in their joint  struggle against the newspaper’s demand that freelancers give up electronic rights for no additional pay, including retroactive rights to past articles.  

2006: We host an NWU national grievance training at which member s from around the country are trained to advise members on contracts and/or handling members’ grievances, co-led by Chris Ammer.  We offer in-depth workshops on Presenting Your Work to a Live Audience, with Charles Coe, and on Getting Your Work on Public Radio with Judah Leblang.

2007:  Profound changes in the book and newspaper industries, and the rise of the Internet, impact freelance writers’ ability to be paid well. Facing a financial and leadership crisis, the NWU votes to be placed under temporary UAW administratorship. Deep cuts to elected officers’ stipends follow, but a budget crisis is averted.

2008: We warn our members about low wage/no wage online “content farms” that dangle micro amounts of pay to writers willing to contribute material.  Our chapter funds the development of a Dollar (or more) a Word Publication List. We support author Sherry Argov, who is awarded $209,000 after finding that Adams Media engaged in “unfair and deceptive business practices” by resisting her attempts to review her royalty records.

2009: We meet with Senator Kennedy’s issues aide to press for national universal publicly funded health care. We co-sponsor the NWU Digital Media Conference: Writers Face the Digital Age, organized by Jason Pramas. We launch a monthly live cable TV show, produced by Wayne Soini and Melita Nasca, featuring NWU book authors interviews.  

2010: Although health insurance (not group) is again available to members in all states. NWU continues to endorse legislation to institute a single-payer health care system that would cover every resident and eliminate high overhead and profits of the current private health insurance industry and HMOs.  Our chapter organizes webinars (Self-Publishing with John Amiard, and Blogging Basics with Jason Pramas for members in all chapters who join a conference call and view a PowerPoint display on their home computers.

2011: NWU steps up its outreach to academic authors, who are often unaware of their rights and can benefit from member-only resources such as free book contract reviews/advice, grievance backup, and guides to negotiating with publishers and agents.

Our parent union, the UAW, declares its support for Occupy Wall Street demonstrations throughout the country, in which thousands of demonstrators identify as “the 99%” and protest wealth inequities that profit “the 1%.”  Our members join support rallies.

“Freelance writers can’t win alone. It takes collective action. That’s why freelancers need the National Writers Union.” – NWU President Larry Goldbetter