Writers and Editors

(many of them strong on fighting for creators' rights and ethical behavior)
This list is subjective. I want the writer or editor new to a rather large world of specialty organizations to know which organizations are the big ones, in size and influence. That doesn't mean they're the ones that will prove most immediately useful for an individual -- but they tend to have more clout than the others, when it comes to something like a fight over copyright, for example. Let me know if you think one of these organizations doesn't belong here, or if an important organization is missing.

•American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA), stronger on newspaper and magazine craft and rights than on books and stronger now on marketing than on rights, as the industry spirals downward.

•Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ),strong on getting health care and medical stories right.

•Authors Guild, strong on authors rights, negotiating good book contracts, with a legal staff and a board of famous writers (in 2010 prez is Scott Turow and vp is Judy Blume) that offers some defense against publishers' tendencies to whittle away at writers' rights and share of income.

•Authors Registry, a clearinghouse or payment agent for organizations wishing to distribute payments to individual U.S.-resident authors.

•International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)

•Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), strong on training and on ethics and freedom of the press issues. Must-join for investigative journalists.

•National Association of Science Writers (NASW, 2,500 science writers and editors and science-writing educators and students.

•National Writers Union (NWU),part of United Auto Workers, easy to join.

•PEN America (poets, essayists, and novelists), with an emphasis on literary writers around the world (fighting for the rights and lives of those where speech and the press are not free)

•Poets & Writers (PW), excellent resource for poets and literary writers

•Society for Technical Communication (STC), whose 14,000 members include technical writers and editors, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, Web designers and developers, and translators - anyone whose work makes technical information available to those who need it.

•The Society of Authors, serving the interests of professional British writers, 8500 members strong.

•Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), absolutely the place to go if you're thinking of writing, or writing, a children's book. It's a totally different genre, with different rules of publishing!

• Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), geared chiefly to staff journalists.

• Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW), where Hollywood is.

• The Writers' Guild of Great Britain