Toronto Life Editorial Internship Programs
Toronto Life offers two editorial internships, both are unpaid four-month programs that offer university students and graduates a chance to learn about the inner workings of a magazine. The first is the Magazine Editorial Internship, which accepts four interns per term. The second is the City Guides Editorial Internship, which accepts one intern per term. See below for full details and application process for both programs.
Toronto Life Magazine Editorial Internship
Toronto Life's editorial internship is an unpaid four-month program for university students and graduates interested in working in the magazine industry. Candidates must be creative, organized, motivated and willing to work a 40-hour week.
In return, the intern will have an opportunity to participate in many aspects of magazine production, including story conferences, post-mortem and production meetings, research and fact-checking. Interns will also write regular pieces for torontolife.com.
If you have the qualifications and are interested, please complete the attached application and return it to our chief of research, Veronica Maddocks, at the magazine (111 Queen St. E., Toronto, Ont. M5C 1S2 or vmaddocks@torontolife.com) along with a cover letter, current résumé and, if available, a published sample of your writing.
Good luck,
Sarah Fulford
Editor
Application
These assignments will enable us to gauge: (a) your familiarity with Toronto Life and its readership; (b) your ability to generate appropriate story ideas; and (c) your writing skills and attention to detail.
- Generate four story ideas for articles in the magazine in the form of proposals (about 100 words each). Show clearly how and why they would be appropriate for an existing section of the magazine (e.g. This City, a front-of-the-book column, a feature story, a design column, etc.). Your proposals should be clearly focused and should indicate why you think these ideas are right for Toronto Life.
- Write a review of the current issue (500 words or so). We know we're not perfect, so we expect a critical analysis.
- Write a 200- to 300-word post for torontolife.com that would be suitable for the Style or Daily Dish blogs. For example, you could write a review of a great lunch spot, a summary of the week's food news, a description of a story you love, or anything else that seems appropriate. This is a writing exercise, so the information you provide can be real or fictional.
- Fact-check and copy-edit the following passage, identifying any errors of fact, grammar, punctuation or spelling. The "I" referred to in the final sentence is chief of research, Veronica Maddocks, who can be contacted at 416-364-3333, ext. 3056. Please provide us with a list of all sources used.
My mother didn’t believe in him. It was only when she saw his name on the official website and his familiar address 7 Club Street, Birkenhead England, that she accepted the existence of this young man. Her own father had never mentioned his older brother who died in the mud of Flanders in July 1917 years before she was born, and all those with answers are now themselves dead. George Agnew is buried in the CWC cemetery at Etaple. The small fishing port had evolved into a “hospital city” equipped to deal with 22,000 wounded but the medical care was perfunctory and the injuries horrendous. 14,000 French and British Great War soldiers lay in its commonwealth graves.
“I never knew,” said my mother, “Why didn’t anyone tell me? They talked enough about the death of your great-grandfather. He walked off the edge of the dock and drowned when he was going back to his ship in the early hours of new year’s eve. He was probably drunk. So why would they talk about one and not the other”
I don’t know. I only know what the small notation tells me.
Toronto Life City Guides Editorial Internship
Toronto Life publishes four annual city guides in addition to the monthly magazine. Each one offers hundreds of reviews—written and researched by a team of local experts—along with short articles on a different topic: Shopping, Real Estate, Eating + Drinking and Weddings. We are looking for an energetic intern to help us with all aspects of producing the guides.
The internship is an unpaid four-month program for university students and graduates interested in working in the magazine industry. The production cycles overlap so each term will allow the intern to work on two guides as follows:
Sept. 8–Dec. 11 Eating + Drinking and Weddings
Jan. 4–April 30 Shopping and Real Estate
May 3–Aug. 27 Real Estate and Eating + Drinking
Candidates must be creative, organized, motivated and willing to work at least 30 in-office hours a week (flexible according to school schedule). A love of city coverage (restaurants, bars, shops, fashion, etc.) is a plus, as is a tireless appetite for what’s going on in all corners of the city.
In return, the intern will have an opportunity to participate in many aspects of magazine production, including story conferences, post-mortem and production meetings, research and fact-checking. Interns will also have the opportunity to report and write for the guides and Torontolife.com.
If you have the qualifications and are interested, please complete the attached application and return it to Rachel Heinrichs at Toronto Life (111 Queen St. E., Toronto, Ont. M5C 1S2 or guides@torontolife.com) along with a cover letter stating what cycle you’d like to work on, current résumé and, if available, a published sample of your writing.
Application
- Write a review of the one of the city guides (250 words or so). We know we're not perfect, so we expect a critical analysis.
- Write a 100-word listing for one of your favourite shops, bars, clubs or restaurants in the city. This exercise requires that you visit the location and record any information and observations you think are appropriate and most useful to Toronto Life readers. Please see the City Guides section of the website for examples.
- Fact-check and copy-edit the following passage, identifying any errors of fact, grammar, punctuation or spelling. The "I" referred to in the final sentence is chief of research, Veronica Maddocks, who can be contacted at 416-364-3333, ext. 3056. Please provide us with a list of all sources used.
These assignments will enable us to gauge: (a) your familiarity with Toronto Life and its readership; and (b) your writing skills and attention to detail.
My mother didn’t believe in him. It was only when she saw his name on the official website and his familiar address 7 Club Street, Birkenhead England, that she accepted the existence of this young man. Her own father had never mentioned his older brother who died in the mud of Flanders in July 1917 years before she was born, and all those with answers are now themselves dead. George Agnew is buried in the CWC cemetery at Etaple. The small fishing port had evolved into a “hospital city” equipped to deal with 22,000 wounded but the medical care was perfunctory and the injuries horrendous. 14,000 French and British Great War soldiers lay in its commonwealth graves.
“I never knew,” said my mother, “Why didn’t anyone tell me? They talked enough about the death of your great-grandfather. He walked off the edge of the dock and drowned when he was going back to his ship in the early hours of new year’s eve. He was probably drunk. So why would they talk about one and not the other”
I don’t know. I only know what the small notation tells me.
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