Temporary Literary Editor

The New Republic is looking for an experienced Temporary Literary Editor with expertise editing long-form criticism to join our team 25 hours a week for six months, from roughly mid-February to mid-August. 

For this part-time, remote position, the editor will be expected to commission and edit six pieces of between 1500 and 4,000 words per issue of the print magazine. The editor will be responsible for assigning a lively mix of articles about current books, movies, and TV that upholds TNR’s long tradition of bold, stylish, and intellectually substantive review-essays, and will work with the art director and photo director to illustrate the section, as well as with the production manager to create the section’s issue map. The editor will liaise with our poetry editor as necessary, and will participate in editorial and planning meetings with the rest of the editorial staff. Applicants should possess a minimum of five years editing experience, and it is absolutely crucial that they have access to a wide network of writers with diverse subject-area specialties. The right candidate should have rich knowledge of, and comfort with, literature, movies, TV, history, politics, economics, and social science—and the ability to engage with that knowledge in service of complex, compelling arguments, and smartly match topic to writer. Those with writing experience, ideally for a general-interest audience, are also strongly preferred, as are those with experience editing for print.

To apply, please submit your résumé and a cover letter explaining why you’re right for this job. The cover letter should be tailored to TNR and show an understanding of our sensibility and history. Please include links to five reviews you’ve edited and at least one clip of your own writing.

Annual salary will be commensurate with experience; the range is between $70,000 and $80,000. The New Republic is committed to diversity and encourages members of underrepresented communities to apply, including women, LGBTQ people, people of color, people with criminal records, veterans, and people with disabilities.

Applicants must be based in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, Illinois, or Washington, D.C.

The deadline for applications is January 10.

The New Republic was founded in 1914 as an intellectual call to arms for public-minded intellectuals advocating liberal reform in a new industrial age. Now, two decades into a new century, TNR remains, if anything, more committed than ever to its first principles—and most of all, to the need to rethink outworn assumptions and political superstitions as radically changing conditions demand.

Cofounder Herbert Croly declared that TNR was an “experiment”—and today we rededicate that experiment, and our magazine’s legacy, to the urgent challenges of reclaiming the democratic faith amid dangerous, deranging new upheavals in our common world.