Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Golden.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Brian. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
When I was eighteen, I went to college with the intent to become President of the United States. Maybe Senator, if I got unlucky. I majored in political science, but I had a bum idea of what poli sci was — a lot of stats and theory, not as much of what I really wanted to learn: how to use language to persuade and inspire an audience toward a better, fairer society.
I ended up falling sideways into a Drama degree. The power of inspiring language and illuminating story collided there to scratch the itch I’d been trying to get at in politics. I became a writer/director and started a theatre group in Chicago doing new work rooted in local history and culture. In eight years, my company produced over twenty new plays, and I learned a great deal about the power of storytelling to work in tandem with political goals. Most of the work we produced wasn’t explicitly political but rooted in the desire to lift up overlooked populations and tell a People’s History version of Chicago life.
The 2016 election shook me up and pushed me back toward politics. I reconnected with an old friend who ran a significant California-based progressive advocacy organization. He brought me on to support with some comms work they were doing around ballot initiatives and legislative transparency. I moved to LA and have deepened my role with that organization and others working in the environmental justice, economic justice and generally progressive space.
I think my specialty is telling clear, persuasive stories about political ideas that resonate with average voters. I am a strong op-ed writer and have ghostwritten many op-eds about California and national political issues that have appeared in the LA Times, Huff Post, Sac Bee and elsewhere. I’m happy to be able to find a way to combine two passions — storytelling and progressive politics — to hopefully make the world a little fairer and kinder.
Has it been a smooth road?
Being a freelancer is a challenge. I feel sometimes like 90% of my life is looking for work, trying to connect with new people and new organizations, and worrying!
I think my greatest strength and greatest weakness is that I don’t have one specific area of expertise — I’m sort of a generalist in that I can write and speak persuasively and competently on a wide range of political issues, but I don’t come with any single field of study I’ve spent ten years working on. That can present a challenge, but it also means I come with a versatility that some others don’t, and can approach things with fresh eyes and an outsider’s perspective.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a freelance communications consultant and writer that assists political organizations in messaging their goals and projects.
I have experience ghostwriting op-eds and speeches for Executive Directors, translating executive summaries for a more general audience, developing talking points on massive constituent engagement projects, grantwriting to earn major gifts for political and arts organizations, and breaking down the voting history of legislators in common sense, everyday terminology.
My writing marries a journalist’s allegiance to fact with a screenwriter’s personality. Also: I make deadlines.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I just moved to Pasadena this month, so I’ll let you know!
But I like that, in Los Angeles, you can turn any corner and not know what kind of street or neighborhood awaits you. I lived in Chicago for twelve years which was a grid city — every major street exactly a half-mile apart — and I felt the predictability of that city emerge in its career paths as well.
Here in Los Angeles, there is a sense of adventure and the unexpected in very layout of the city that I feel ends up mirrored in the way life unfolds — or, sometimes, smacks you right in the face.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.briankgolden.com
- Phone: 3128066577
- Email: brian.golden@gmail.com
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