I'm blogging for Gawker

So I have left the Business Times and am writing for Gawker, a blog about media and pop culture. My last day at the Business Times was Jan. 19; my first day at Gawker started last night (Sunday).

You can read some of my initial Gawker posts here (the ones with my name in the lower right corner, mixed in with other peoples' posts).

Gawker is based in New York but I will be based at home in Berkeley, working an evening shift to get a jump on the next day's news.

I've long been an admirer of Gawker Media CEO -- and now Gawker Managing Editor -- Nick Denton, and this opportunity was too good to pass up. Still, I'll very much miss covering the hospitality beat at the Business Times, not to mention the East Bay. (I'm writing so many individual goodbye emails that I'm still sending them out; should probably just put everyone in a mass email already.)

I apologize for the long break in posting; I was busy interviewing and preparing for this gig and did not want to say anything until it was official.

In about three months time I'll probably start looking for freelance magazine work here and there (hospitality-related, hopefully) to flex my long-form writing muscles; if you know of any opportunities, please email me!

People have asked me what is going to happen to Covers. Here is the answer:

I'm going to keep writing Covers. Hospitality is a beat I'm going to keep following, and I'm going to have something to say on a regular basis. But it probably won't be on a daily basis, especially over the couple of months.

The best way to read Covers is along with all the other great restaurant blogs in this town, like SF Eater and Tablehopper and Bauer and your favorite food blog, in an RSS "feed reader" like Google Reader. A feed reader lets you read a bunch of different sites on one page, and it makes it a lot easier to follow sites that update sporadically.

If you've been sending me tips, the good news is that I can now post them up immediately, because I don't have to hold anything for the Business Times ;-) I promise, if you send me something good, I will get it up within an hour of seeing your email.

A tech note, you'll have to access Covers through sfcovers.com. Right now, you can also get here through ryantate.com, but I'm turning ryantate.com back into a truly personal homepage.

Thank you to everyone who has read this blog, offered words of encouragement or helped educate me about the biz.