Job Q&A
by Lara Peterson
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Michael Spinella is the chief wordsmith/grammarian at theSauce.com, a Web site dedicated to supporting independent restaurant operators. The site offers expert advice on subjects ranging from how to run a restaurant to the latest news relevant to independent restaurateurs. TheSauce.com also operates Flyinthesoup.com and Eatingoutloud.com. Spinella is responsible for writing, editing and maintaining a consistent voice throughout the site. He has a BA in classics and religion from Northwestern University and an MA in history from Cambridge University in England.

Michael Spinella: I am 25 years old and began working in publishing right out of graduate school as an editorial assistant for a national magazine. It was a pretty standard route to take in the print publishing world. I then moved into a new position as a production editor at the University of Chicago Press. I coordinated the production of an academic journal that was published both in print and online. While working at the University of Chicago, I realized that the online part of the job really interested and excited me about my work. I taught myself HTML and learned about other languages and scripts such as Java and Perl. Although I can't program in these languages, I am certainly aware of what they can do and how they function. I had also been writing freelance articles since finishing school, and had always hoped that writing would fit somewhere into my career.

MS: Actually, I saw the position posted on Monster.com! I felt that if I were searching for online jobs, the Internet would be the best place to start.

MS:I had a few recruiter contacts, but nothing really seemed to pan out there. I think that interviewers were most impressed with my writing experience, my enthusiasm for the Internet, and my desire to join a startup environment.

MS: Essentially, I "own" all of the words on the site. Maintaining a

MS: It is absolutely essential to be able to multitask in this industry. I often find myself working on five or six things at once, and I must set my own priorities. Independence and self-sufficiency should be a required skill set for an Internet writer because a writer will really need to set his/her priorities and schedule. Another challenge has been figuring out where exactly the writer fits into the whole production process. The writer is responsible for so many aspects, yet I am often only involved in a project at the last minute when I really should have been involved from the very start. I find myself in battles over words much of the time -- a good place to be, and they're worthwhile (and sometimes fun!) arguments.

MS: Print publishing and writing is a very stable, organized process -- everyone involved knows what kinds of deadlines to expect, what a production schedule looks like, and when certain things need to be done. Working online throws any sense of that process flow out the window, and we need to start from scratch. Emergencies exist all the time because the Internet is accessible 24 hours a day. The Internet is constantly changing, and as a result, any mistakes can be easily corrected. When a mistake is made in print, it’s there forever.

MS: A writer's life is always solitary, but being around a group of creative, inspired colleagues has been very rewarding in ways I would never guess. Being able to bounce ideas off of someone with a completely different background creates a remarkable synergy, with very productive results! I find that to be the biggest upside, along with setting one's own priorities. There are no firmly established job descriptions in the Internet world, and as a result, the job is what you make of it. The lack of structure is also the biggest downside. Print publishing is all about schedules; hours are spent languishing over spreadsheets and schedules. The Internet is all about new possibilities; it can't succeed if it's constrained by schedules and outmoded thinking.