Join Our Team!

Nightingale & Sparrow is looking to add some more birds to our nest!

Full disclosure:  These are unpaid, remote, volunteer positions.

While we’re generating some income from print and merchandise sales, we’re not yet making the profit necessary to bring on paid staff or writers—we’re continuing to grow, though, and hope that we’ll be able to change this in the not-so-distant future!

If you’re in need of volunteer hours for school or something similar, we’re happy to fill out whatever forms you need!

As N&S continues to grow, our current team hopes to grow along with it!  To help make sure that the magazine and press continue to run smoothly and can keep showcasing the stellar work of our contributors going forward, we’re looking for an assortment of enthusiastic volunteer team members to join our “nest.”

Our primary focus is growing our literary magazine staff but applicants are welcome to express interest in N&S Press or our imprints, too. Many of our team members assist have started working on these other projects as well!

Current Openings, applications close 31st July 2022:
Descriptions linked & below

• Department Heads:
  • Chief Production Manager
  • Communications Liaison
  • Social Media Manager
• Editorial Team:
  • Creative Nonfiction Editors (2)
  • Curators (2)
• Production Team:
  • Production Managers (3)
• Communications Team
  • Communications Coordinators (3)
• Social Media Team
  • Social Media Strategists (3)

Chief Production Manager

Production managers create each issue of Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine, using the accepted pieces edited by each section’s team, contributor-supplied bios and headshots, staff masthead information, and N&S formatting & style guidelines. Using Google Suite, WordPress, and various web tools, they will craft the print, digital, and web archive editions of each quarterly issue. Additionally, they’ll work to ensure the Nightingale & Sparrow websites are updated and maintained, regularly audited, and consistently managed.

In addition to their departmental responsibilities, department heads are selected to lead their portion of the N&S team. They will allocate tasks throughout their department, monitor their team’s productivity, & collaborate with Juliette and team members to keep each group (and, by extension, N&S as a whole) running smoothly. Each department head will have access to ClickUp, where they’ll work with Juliette to delegate the issue or project’s workload. The EIC may also delegate higher-level tasks to Department Heads as appropriate. 

Communications Liaison

Members of the communications team are responsible for communicating with submitters, contributors, launch team members, readers, and others who contact N&S. This includes sending submissions responses, notifying interested parties of updates, and answering queries when appropriate, per N&S guidelines and/or templates. When a query requires knowledge from a particular department, they’ll reach out to the relevant head(s) to ensure it’s in the appropriate hands.  In addition to working with their department head (Communications Liaison) and Juliette, the communications team will notify the social media team of any necessary updates, including delayed response times. Communications will also ensure that Zapier “zaps” are activated for each submissions period, allowing automated confirmation emails to be sent to submitters. 

In addition to their departmental responsibilities, department heads are selected to lead their portion of the N&S team. They will allocate tasks throughout their department, monitor their team’s productivity, & collaborate with Juliette and team members to keep each group (and, by extension, N&S as a whole) running smoothly. Each department head will have access to ClickUp, where they’ll work with Juliette to delegate the issue or project’s workload. The EIC may also delegate higher-level tasks to Department Heads as appropriate.

Social Media Manager

Members of our social media team create content for our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts, including designing graphics in Canva or their preferred program, scheduling posts, and connecting with readers, contributors, and others by sharing mentions and news, promoting existing content, and other such marketing efforts. YouTube opportunities may be added in the future. They will have the opportunity to specify their particular skills or interest in a specific platform(s).

In addition to their departmental responsibilities, department heads are selected to lead their portion of the N&S team. They will allocate tasks throughout their department, monitor their team’s productivity, & collaborate with Juliette and team members to keep each group (and, by extension, N&S as a whole) running smoothly. Each department head will have access to ClickUp, where they’ll work with Juliette to delegate the issue or project’s workload. The EIC may also delegate higher-level tasks to Department Heads as appropriate.

Section Editors (CNF)

Section editors are responsible for making initial decisions on pieces submitted to the literary magazine, editing selected pieces (as decided by the EIC), and making necessary contributor edits following reviews of the issue proof. Section editors will make any adjustments to grammar, proofreading, or spelling errors, in addition to applying standard N&S styling, before sending pieces to the production team, who’ll create the issue proof. For any more significant changes, section heads should be informed and contact the contributor of that piece to discuss.

Section Curators

Section curators will work specifically with visual art submissions, examining pieces in conjunction with selected written work to choose photos or other artwork that highlight the issue as a whole, as well as the written work immediately adjacent.

Production Managers

Production managers create each issue of Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine, using the accepted pieces edited by each section’s team, contributor-supplied bios and headshots, staff masthead information, and N&S formatting & style guidelines. Using Google Suite, WordPress, and various web tools, they will craft the print, digital, and web archive editions of each quarterly issue. Additionally, they’ll work to ensure the Nightingale & Sparrow websites are updated and maintained, regularly audited, and consistently managed.

Communications Coordinators

Members of the communications team are responsible for communicating with submitters, contributors, launch team members, readers, and others who contact N&S. This includes sending submissions responses, notifying interested parties of updates, and answering queries when appropriate, per N&S guidelines and/or templates. When a query requires knowledge from a particular department, they’ll reach out to the relevant head(s) to ensure it’s in the appropriate hands.  In addition to working with their department head (Communications Liaison) and Juliette, the communications team will notify the social media team of any necessary updates, including delayed response times. Communications will also ensure that Zapier “zaps” are activated for each submissions period, allowing automated confirmation emails to be sent to submitters. 

Social Media Strategists

Members of our social media team create content for our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts, including designing graphics in Canva or their preferred program, scheduling posts, and connecting with readers, contributors, and others by sharing mentions and news, promoting existing content, and other such marketing efforts. YouTube opportunities may be added in the future. They will have the opportunity to specify their particular skills or interest in a specific platform(s).

For all positions:

We promise to not take over your life with crazy expectations or excessive workload—we understand that these are unpaid volunteer positions and would never want to take advantage of you. At the same time, though, it’s important that all team members do their part to bring each project to life.

For the magazine, there will be the most work in the weeks leading up to each issue’s launch (usually the first two weeks of every third month), and there will also be much slower periods.  For N&S Press, work will be a bit more spread out, currently preparing our next round of publications.

We’d love to work with someone who is looking for more experience in the writing/publishing field and would be more than happy to provide references/recommendations for your future endeavours.  We’ve been around the block a few times ourselves with various projects and would be thrilled to help start someone off on their own journey!

We also offer the N&S Press Staff Series as another way to give back to our team.  Twice a year, we reserve a slot in our publication schedule for any projects submitted by members of the Nightingale & Sparrow staff.

While our team is currently made up of volunteers, we plan to offer compensation as soon as N&S income allows.

Skills/Experience we’d love to see For these Positions:

*Note: This is by no means a checklist!  We don’t expect you to know/have done everything here.  Consider this our ultimate wishlist and highlight what you’ve got while applying—we ultimately want the best candidate for our team as a whole, not just whoever’s got the highest skill level or the most experience. Most of these skills apply to all of these positions, though some will be more relevant than others

• Strong writing skills
• Some copyediting experience
• Experience using word processors for formatting, especially with images
• Knowledge of Google Suite, Trello, Slack, ClickUp, and Airtable
• Prior lit mag experience (again, not necessary, though beneficial)
• Effective virtual communication skills
• Confidence both in working as part of a team and on your own as needed (remember- this is a remote position)

All-Staff Expectations

• All team members will be kind and respectful to others in the “nest,” including fellow staff/volunteers, submitters and contributors, authors, and others interacting with N&S. 
• All team members will communicate promptly with their fellow N&S team members or department heads as necessary, including, but not limited to:
• Check-ins and progress updates
• Delays or leaves of absence from the team
• Issues or concerns 
• All team members will utilise the necessary accounts and services to perform N&S tasks. 
  • These include: 
    • ClickUp
    • Grammarly
    • Canva
    • Gmail
    • Google Drive (Docs, in particular)
    • WordPress
    • Slack
    • Trello
• All team members are to use N&S guidelines, style sheets and templates at all times, to maintain the N&S brand and our professional appearance. 
• All team members will regularly check their assigned tasks, projects, and threads to avoid missing any updates or deadlines.

To apply:

Firstly, be sure to read through this page and take a look around our site—if you think you’d be a great fit, continue! 🙂

We’ll be accepting applications for these positions through 31 July 2022 (11:59 pm EST).  From there, we’ll send some additional questions to our shortlist if necessary, with decisions coming shortly thereafter. Feel free to apply to more than one position, if multiple openings interest you—just be sure to submit a separate application.

Questions? Email our founding editor at [email protected]. 

Thank you so much for considering joining our team—the birds can’t wait to meet you!

We’re also seeking to add new members to our launch team, particularly interviewers!