Editorial Director

About Youth Communication

Youth Communication (YC) is on a mission to elevate teen voices to create real change.

Through the power of true stories, written by youth who have been systemically marginalized, we create more supportive and successful learning communities.

Since 1980, Youth Communication has worked with youth facing systemic challenges – including youth of color, LGBTQ+ youth, and youth who are recent immigrants, living in foster care, unhoused, or economically struggling – to write and publish true stories about their lives. These stories engage and inspire teen readers and help educators and other adults better understand and serve the young people they work with.

What We Do

Writing: In our award-winning writing program, NYC teens work one-on-one with professional adult editors to write personal narratives and reported stories. For the writers, our intensive writing and reflection process – stories can go through a dozen drafts or more – is often personally transformative. It also results in stories that have the power to be transformative for readers. These stories are the foundation of all our other work.

Publishing: We publish these stories in our online magazines, YCTeen and Represent; in weekly email blasts to thousands of educators, youth workers, and policy makers; in partner media outlets like Chalkbeat and the Imprint; and in anthologies and curricula, reaching a wide audience of teens and the adults who work with them.

Education and Training: We also leverage the stories of young people to create change through our education program, providing teachers, after-school workers, and other youth workers with culturally responsive social and emotional learning programs. By centering youth voice, these programs engage students, inspire their confidence and feelings of self-worth, and show teachers and other adults who’s in their classrooms.

About the Role

The editorial director leads Youth Communication’s editorial department: managing two senior editors, overseeing all editorial content, and working with a small group of teen writers each semester.

As part of the leadership team, the editorial director will also work closely with the executive director and others on editorial strategy – serving as a thought partner and leader in shaping the department going forward. This is an exciting time for our editorial team, and we need a leader who is ready to build out and execute a new, innovative publishing strategy to increase our reach to teen and adult readers.

Key responsibilities include:

Serve as managing editor for our two teen magazines and other editorial products:

• Final edit each teen story before publication, checking for any content holes, inconsistencies, red flags, libel and privacy issues, etc.
• Copy edit stories for style, grammar, punctuation, and accuracy.
• Manage the editorial process for our e-book anthologies, topic-based website verticals, and other editorial projects as they arise.
• Stay informed on issues affecting the teens we work with and maintain an evolving list of potential story ideas and themes we should consider covering. Work with editors to coordinate story packages on timely or relevant themes.
• Work with editors and the marketing team to identify stories for “Story of the Week” emails and collaborate on changes to this format or other ways to more effectively reach our audience of educators and staff working with marginalized youth.
• Along with editors, pitch stories to publishing partners such as Chalkbeat, The Imprint, and The Nation; work with the marketing department to develop other potential partners and distribution strategies around particular stories and themes.
• From time to time, pitch in with editing and proofreading support for other departments.

Lead editorial team:

• Manage and support two senior editors, including providing feedback on stories and writer challenges, organizing weekly editors meetings, and leading an annual review and goal-setting process.
• Serve as the point person for coordination and collaboration with executive director and staff from other departments (marketing, development, education) on organization-wide projects and issues that require editorial input.
• Collaborate with the marketing team to explore and execute new ideas for reaching audiences, such as targeted outreach around specific stories and themes; creating new topic verticals or website features, and building publishing partnerships..

Work with writers:

• Work one-on-one with three to five teen writers each semester to complete authentic personal stories as well as occasional reported essays and interviews.
• Build supportive, mentoring relationships with a diverse array of teen writers, including some who have been in foster care or other systems, have experienced complex trauma, and/or may have relatively weak writing skills.
• Help writers identify and shape appropriate story ideas (i.e., stories that are personally meaningful to the writer, of interest to the reader, and are matched to the writer’s skill level and emotional capacity).
• Provide attentive, strengths-based feedback and developmental edits that move the story forward and encourage writers – including those with low writing skills – through the writing of multiple drafts.
• During the school year, work with editors to plan and co-lead regular group writer meetings to build community among the teen writers, develop and discuss ideas for coverage, workshop stories, and teach key writing and reporting skills.
• Work with editors to plan and co-lead the six-week summer writing workshop.

Skills and Qualifications:

• A background in journalism and at least 7-10 years of writing and editing experience. An advanced degree in journalism is helpful, but not required.
• Skilled in all aspects of editing: developmental, structural, line editing, fact-checking, and copy editing.
• At least 3 years’ experience managing people and publications.
• Interest in and experience with working with young people from marginalized communities.
• Passion for YC’s mission and purpose (see YouthComm.org for more information).
• Entrepreneurial spirit – able to identify new opportunities and/or problems or processes that aren’t working or could be improved and be proactive about addressing them.
• Collegial colleague with strong communication and management skills.
• Leadership. curiosity, energy and eagerness to learn. This position offers great potential for growth, and the right candidate will have significant opportunity to shape an editorial department that is continually evolving to meet our organizational mission.