Max Ramirez (he/him) is a writer, editor, and swing dancer based in Oakland, California.

I’m a writer and editor by training. I have five years’ experience doing a mixture of writing, editing, and content marketing at startups with strong sensibilities for the importance of quality content. I currently work in the service industry, and in my spare time, I write for myself and teach Lindy Hop locally.

I write my own newsletter, First Alternate, about the contemporary history of Lindy Hop and my own thoughts on and experiences in the local, national and international scene.

Newsletter

2024-present

 

I have worked with the Criterion Collection, proofreading printed materials for new Blu-ray and DVD releases like Love & Basketball and Working Girls. I’m also seeking and taking on new clients!

Freelance work

2021-present

 

Grammarly

2018 – 2021

As Content Operations Manager at Grammarly, I oversee the production of our consumer blog at grammarly.com/blog. This includes sourcing freelance writers, assigning out monthly posts, and managing the posts from first draft to publish.

I have also edited and produced B2B, company, and product maketing content, as well as written or edited copy for ad channels, videos, and static images. I was also the sole copy editor for all consumer-facing social media channels up until the end of 2020.

Highlights of my time at Grammarly include:

  • Advocating for a move from an inefficient content marketing management tool to a platform more suited to my team’s needs, and getting cross-functional buy-in

  • Writing blogs about gender, language, and the product, partnering on strategy, and editing supporting materials for Grammarly’s 2018-2020 Pride campaigns

  • Giving an internal presentation on singular “they” gender pronouns to the team in Kyiv and San Francisco

  • Supporting Grammarly’s product through pieces for our Grammarly Spotlight series and our rollout of our updated assistant

  • Onboarding four new women writers to our bench of freelancers and advocating internally for their equitable pay

 

NerdWallet

2016 – 2017

As a Staff Writer on NerdWallet’s incredible, 90+ person Content team, I cut my teeth in data journalism as a partner to the Integrated Marketing team and wrote about the effectiveness of small-dollar moneymaking ventures on the Personal Finance vertical.

Some of my favorite bylines (as Veronica Ramirez) include:

 

Lindy hop

2012–present

When I’m not at my day job, I spend time practicing and teaching the Lindy hop and its associated vernacular jazz dances. My classes focus on creating comfortable technique, engendering a love of swing music and history, and inspiring students to come back for more. I have been dancing since 2012, began teaching my college club six months later, and have taught semi-professionally since 2016.

I’ve taught at local venues including Oakland’s The Breakaway, San Francisco’s The 9:20 Special and Cat’s Corner, and Palo Alto’s Wednesday Night Hop, and have taught special workshops for my alma mater club, UC Berkeley’s Lindy on Sproul, and taught at a special workshop for up-and-coming teachers put on by Minneapolis’s Uptown Swing. My dance partner and I also travel several times a year (when possible) to contest weekends, to challenge ourselves and stay fresh—I even placed in one!

 

Trancos, Inc

2015 – 2016

Directly out of college, I spent 8 months writing 8 articles per day, anywhere from 250-500 words apiece, for Trancos, Inc’s content properties like MommyPage (when they had a blog component). I don’t know where any of them live, and they were not bylined, but boy, did that job teach me to write fast!

 

I am not often inspired to write for myself, but occasionally I do! One of my posts, an ad hoc response to an NPR review of Frank Ocean’s Blonde that I wrote from deep in the closet, was an Editor’s Pick on Medium (back when that was something done by humans), and still gets 10-odd reads per month four years later, and my personal essay upon announcing that I was seeking top surgery is something I’m pretty proud of.

My first published work was a short story called “Comfort Food” in The Daily Californian’s culture mag The Weekender—little did they know it was also my first ever short story.

Miscellaneous writing

2015 – Present