Jack Riedy Interview (Freelance writer)
Jack Riedy is a freelance journalist in Chicago who has written for Pitchfork, GQ, and Chicago Reader*. His most recent work, though, is the self-published book Electric Word Life: Writing on Prince 2016-2021.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I was the arts editor of my high school’s monthly newspaper, but I didn’t start writing for my university’s paper until halfway through my time there. Lots of new music reviews and blurbs, mostly about big new releases like ANTI, Blonde, and Life of Pablo. I also wrote a profile of a workhorse student rapper. I remember interviewing one of their producers, just to have a second voice, and thinking “So THIS is how magazine profiles get written.”
After graduating in 2017, I started cold emailing editors, anyone I saw on twitter looking for pitches. I would accumulate ideas and pitches at my day job in marketing then write pitches and stories on the nights when I wasn’t going out to see shows in Chicago.