F&W Publications is a Cincinnati, Ohio company that produces a variety of arts and crafts nonfiction books and magazines. It was founded in 1913.

Their flagship line is Writer's Digest magazine and Writer's Digest Books, and their best-selling books are Writer's Market and related books such as Poet's Market. Their other book lines include North Light Books, Betterway Books, Walking Stick Press and Popular Woodworking Books. Their magazines include Family Tree Magazine, The Artist's Magazine, HOW Magazine, Popular Woodworking, Decorative Artist's Workbook, Watercolor Magic and ID.

The company is housed in an attractive 1920s-era art deco building that used to be a Coca-Cola bottling factory. The building is right across the street from Xavier University, which also means it borders on a fairly bad neighborhood. However, I have not heard of staff members experiencing any trouble leaving work after dark.

I completed a summer copywriting internship at F&W Publications back in 1994. Overall, it was a very good experience, and I came away from it with some good skills. At the time, the company had a very strong internship program (it looks as though they still do) and their pay was very decent compared with what interns usually received.

I originally applied for a graphic design internship, but the art department would only accept art majors (I was a journalism major; other majors they prefer are English and business majors). The people in human resources seemed to like what they saw on my resume, and after they gave me a phone interview, they offered me a spot with the copywriting section. So, I guess the "take home" message is that if they like you, they'll find a place for you.

They give all the interns an aptitude test (which they file in case you apply for a full-time job later) and if you do well in the internship it's a good "in" to the company.

It seemed that working for F&W was very pleasant; most employees there were nice folks and seemed fairly content. The pay is somewhat low (as is pay throughout the publishing industry) but employees are offered perks such flex time, decent vacation, and casual dress.

The only downside to my time there was that the art department was fairly unfriendly and uncooperative towards the other departments. When I tried to arrange meetings with two of the graphic designers to learn more about what they did (we had been encouraged to meet with members of other departments to find out more about the industry and the company), both of them completely blew me and my supervisor off. I am hopeful that situation has improved over the past eight years.

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