It’s time for another round of hand-picked writer and freelance writing jobs. Let those other sites scrape Craigslist, they’re doing a great job. We prefer to bring you our picks based on something more discriminating. We don’t always catch the goofy ones– sometimes a clown company slips under our radar and we thank you for pointing out when we’re found what looks like a promising freelance job that turns out to be something less than what it promises. Together, we’ll find the GOOD gigs. As always, thanks for reading.

There are lots of higher education writing gigs available lately. Want to go back to academia? Columbia University in New York needs a writer/researcher. You need a Bachelor’s and a background in PR or news writing. You’ll be working in the office of Columbia U’s president and there’s a lot of internal communication mentioned for this position. Apply online at Columbia via their Human Resources page.

St. John’s University needs a writer for the Office of Communications, Division of Institutional Advancement in Queens, NY. You’ll write for St. John’s University Magazine, plus internal communication, advertisements and create content for the St. John’s University Alumni and Friends official site, among other things.

There are some excellent opportunities for writers with journalism backgrounds. Inside Washington Publishers advertises for those who have investigative flair. This publisher is responsible for titles including Inside EPA, Inside the Pentagon, and many others. Send your resume, and be sure to discuss your background, career goals and why you like this kind of writing to Alan Sosenko. Do yourself a favor first–have a look at IWPNews.com first, THEN send an e-mail to jobs09@iwpnews.com.

The Lightstone Group wants a freelance writer to create articles about the company, but it’s not clear from the ad whether you’re writing pieces about the company FOR Lightstone or if you’re also responsible for trying to PLACE the articles. Ask them when you write primejobs@primeretail.com.

A shameful practice has started creeping in to the job ads posted by the content sites. We’ve spotted ads which appear to be posted by any other company advertising gigs for freelance writers, but when you read the content of the ad, you discover you must “apply” through one of the content sites. It looks to us like a sneaky ploy to trick writers into singing up for a content mill (you already know which ones they are) and we encourage everyone to write to the offending companies and raise a stink.