Perhaps the most difficult step in starting your business - psychologically, emotionally and financially - is quitting your day job and stepping out on your own. Michelle Goodman, author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube (Seal Press, 2007), has written a how-to guide aimed at young women ready to turn their passion into a business. And we’re delighted to announce that she’ll be joining us as a speaker at BizJam on June 9th.

Michelle is herself a successful freelance writer and “former wage slave” who writes for women between 25 and 35. But the quest to wring meaning from work knows know gender barriers, and men itching to strike out on their own will likely find her advice equally relevant.

At BizJam, Michelle will participate in a panel discussion on the topic of “How to ditch your day job,” and lead a JamSession that will address the following topics:

• Business startup checklist
• How to cultivate a client list
• Shameless self-promotion ideas

More About Michelle

Michelle Goodman fled the cube in 1992 to become a freelance writer and has yet to look back. Her reported pieces about alternative careers, human mating rituals, and popular culture have appeared in Salon, Bust, Bitch, Bark, the Seattle Times, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Her essays have been anthologized in The Moment of Truth: Women’s Funniest Romantic Catastrophes and the forthcoming Single State of the Union: Single Women Speak Out on Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In 2006 she was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook, a prominent women’s writing retreat in Washington that receives hundreds of applications from around the globe each year.

Michelle’s freelance writing career has allowed her to work with everyone from book publishers to high-tech empires to peddlers of new-age products, wrangling text on pet accessories, video games, voice recognition software, marital aids, home colonics, and just about anything else that can be sold. A frequent speaker on the freelance writing life, Michelle has participated in panel discussions at Northwest Bookfest, Richard Hugo House, and the University of Washington. She also teaches classes through Media Bistro and the Editorial Freelancers Association in an effort to help aspiring cubicle expats avoid the same mistakes she made early in her own solo career.

Born and raised in the Garden State, Michelle received her B.A. in journalism from George Washington University. In her former 9-to-5 existence, she worked as a newspaper reporter, book editor, publicist, and web community editor. Michelle lives in Seattle with her eighty-pound lap dog, Buddy. The Anti 9-to-5 Guide is her first book.