#MediaMonday – Amy Marturana Winderl
Today’s Media Monday comes to us from Amy Marturana Winderl, who is today a nationally published freelance journalist. Before making the move to go freelance, she served as the deputy fitness editor at SELF, where she wrote, assigned and edited a variety of content, including personal essays, service pieces, and research-heavy explainers.
Amy, time to share!
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Newtown, Pennsylvania, a northern suburb of Philadelphia.
How did you get into journalism? Share your journey.
When I was looking at colleges, I knew I wanted to do something that involved writing. My piano teacher, actually, told me that Syracuse University had a great journalism school, so I looked into it. I visited campus on a beautiful August day, and immediately was hooked. I applied early decision. The summer after my junior year, I had an internship in the beauty department at Prevention Magazine, which was an absolute blast. When I graduated, with a degree in Magazine Journalism, I decided I wanted to cover beauty and health if I could. That summer, I took a paid internship at HuffPost Home, and then from there, I got an editorial assistant job at a startup that’s no longer around, where I covered beauty and health. After bopping around to a few different websites and a formative experience getting laid off (practically a rite of passage as a journalist), I was hired as the health editor at SELF. In a few years, I worked my way up to deputy fitness editor.
How did you come to make the move to freelance?
I actually left SELF to freelance because my husband and I wanted to move out of New York and spend a year traveling the country in a RV. I knew a traditional 9-5 wouldn’t really work if we wanted to be able to make the most of the trip, so I decided to make the jump to freelance so I could work while we traveled but have the flexibility to set my own hours.
Please share some outlets for which you write as well as the topics you most enjoy covering:
I write for a bunch of different outlets—diversifying is key as a freelancer—including SELF, The Healthy, HealthCentral, Martha Stewart Living, and Outside. I mainly cover health and fitness, but have also been getting more into travel writing as it’s become a bigger part of my own life. I also do a lot of behind-the-scenes research work for bigger health-focused projects—the type of work that doesn’t always end with a byline, but is really thought-provoking and challenging. I love how many new things I get to learn from these types of assignments.
What would readers be surprised to know about you?
I’m not a morning person at all. It’s weird as a fitness person—just about every fitness editor/writer/trainer/enthusiast I know wakes up early to work out first thing. But I’d choose exercising at 7 pm over 7 am any day.
What are your favorite movies?
27 Dresses, 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, Just Friends… Yes, I’m aware these are all chick flicks. I also love dramatic, suspenseful movies, but they’re never as good once you already know the twist. Roms-coms are great every single time. They’re the comfort food of movies.
Favorite books or bands?
Anything by Gillian Flynn.
Where we can learn more about you or get in touch?
