Hello, I am Leonard Brattoli. For my Spring 2022 internship, I had the pleasure of working at the Love Yourself Foundation as one of their Blog and Newsletter Writers. The Love Yourself Foundation, or LYF, is a local non-profit that aims to promote mental health by using the arts and self-care. My duties involved writing a monthly longform blog post, drafting a bimonthly newsletter, producing Instagram captions, and working LYF-sponsored events (pictured below, courtesy of Enrique Malfavon). I was interested in interning with this organization because I wanted to develop my professional writing skills.
To be successful at my internship, I needed to bring my writing talent and previous blog experience. I had been writing for two blogs before joining LYF, so I already had knowledge on the industry and how to work with clients. However, LYF gave me the opportunity to rethink how I went about my work. For example, it taught me how to write while working with others. A few days after I joined LYF, my first blog was due. This meant that I had to quickly get out a post, even though it would be my first one with LYF. This taught me how to communicate with a team to create a blog post that aligns with the values of the organization. To do this, I began connecting with my coworkers through Slack on my phone and asking for advice. As a professional writer, collaboration is key. I plan to work in the writing industry in the future, so it is important that my internship taught me strategies like these to be successful later.
As an aspiring writer, I am glad I got this internship opportunity. As I continue my studies as an English major, I want to also develop my blog writing skills. To foster my future as a freelance writer, I want to gain more clients to increase my current revenue and reputation as a freelance writer. I plan to next create a personal website that hosts a complete catalog of all my work. This way I can have an evolving portfolio that shows my experience, which I can then use to gain new clients.
The big takeaway of my internship, then, was learning how to create appealing writing and how to get work published. In the modern writing landscape, knowing how to do these two things is invaluable. Thank you, LYF!
Hi Leonard!
This was such a heartwarming piece to read and it seems like you had a lot of great experiences working with the Love Yourself Foundation! I love the idea of a blog that provides insight into mental health and overall just loving yourself more, I will definitely be checking out their website and hopefully reading some of your work as well. Seeing that you want to become a freelance writer, this seems like a match made in heaven that you were able to gain valuable experience creating pieces that appeal to the audience as well as the topic in mind. I am sure that you will gain more knowledge as you continue your studies and have a very bright future ahead of you!