Best Area for Small Press and Tech Jobs?

She needs to work her school network and careeer services office hard to suss out small press/editorial jobs in the Bay Area. There's not *none*, but the market is tight and very competitive. There are also textbook, technical, and academic publishers. When I got laid off from Lonely Planet a million years ago, my compatriots and I went to some http://corporate.mediabistro.com/ events and it looks like they're still chugging along, so that's a place to look as well. Since you already have a job, put all the focus on hers. Short commutes means you'll most likely be looking for a place in San Francisco (insane! very expensive!) or the East Bay (slightly less crazy, still not cheap), or perhaps a little bit down the Peninsula on a BART or Caltrain line.

Staff writing/editing jobs are hard to come by across the board. In addition to rtha's networking suggestions, I would suggest she plan on freelancing both as a way to earn income but also as a means to get her foot in the door at places where a staff job might eventually open up.

I'd do Silicon Valley, you'll have lots of options for code writing. Lots. I'd say find your job, then find the place. I'd look on the Penninsula, from about Palo Alto down to San Jose. As for small press, I googled Northern California Small Press and came up with lists that were as recent as 2007, so...yeah, no idea what to tell you about that. Also, any job in publishing these days is going to be low paying and fiercely competative. Does your friend have any alternative plans for work? She should really open up her horizons for that. Rentals are a lot easier in the south bay than they are in The City (San Francisco). There are lots and lots of apartment complexes with 2/2 floorplans. Good Luck to you!

I mean, San Francisco is certainly your best bet for sheer volume of small presses in CA. Though I'm not sure it will match your 'not-outrageous rent prices' qualification. To be honest, though, just moving somewhere and hoping you find a coding job and she finds a small press job a reasonable distance from your apartment is kind of a difficult prospect, to put it mildly. If you're set on just moving somewhere, it may take her some time to find a job in small press, if she finds one at all. Since she has BAH to help out on her end, I would focus more on where you can get a job. Can you try and secure a job in the Bay Area before you move there? That's probably what I would try to do in your situation.

If she is willing to learn type setting, she could set up her own small press. There is one for sale now in NYRB that she could move out West. Setting up her own is a risky move but will provide a huge amount of credibility, especially if she is seeking to publish toward a niche.

Be aware that Bay Area traffic along 880, 101, 80, anywhere near the Bay Bridge, 24, etc. and all over the South Bay is really terrible. She'll want to be physically close to where she works or have both your housing and her job along a commuter line. Also, your BAH won't cover you for a 2/2 in San Francisco. Last I looked you're going to be at $2,500 and up. Probably closer to $3,000, not including utilities. The East Bay, Peninsula, and South Bay are slightly (but only slightly) cheaper unless you jump into marginal neighborhoods. Sorry, no help on small press jobs.

My experience as a military wife is that the service member's official duty assignment determines BAH, not the place of residence of the spouse. I will second the suggestion that you double-check your info on that detail. I left California during my divorce in part because his official duty assignment changed and BAH dropped substantially. Prior to that, I had remained in Cali while he lived and worked in another state, but it was officially a "temporary duty assignment." When they decided to make the new state his official duty assignment, it impacted his pay/my alimony.

Nthing re-checking the BAH. During my short stint as a military wife, we received support based on our official duty assignment post while my SO was deployed. (I'd actually thought of returning to NYC while waiting for him, assuming we'd get a higher rate. Not so.)

As far as BAH goes, I'm pretty sure this is a one-year unaccompanied overseas tour, and the overseas station counts as a PDS. The http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/faqbah.cfm#Q1:If a member with dependents (except for a member paying child support) is serving an UNACCOMPANIED overseas tour, the member is eligible for BAH at the "with-dependent" rate, based on the dependent's U.S. residence ZIP Code, plus FSH at the OCONUS PDS, if the member is not provided government housing overseas. So, I'm not entirely sure myself, but this is what he says, so I'm believing him until he finds out otherwise. His current BAH is determined by his duty station, not by where we live, which amounts to $300 difference or so. I've already deduced that it won't be reasonable to live in San Francisco. Every once in a while a place on the edges of San Francisco shows up on Craigslist for $2200, but nothing like the number of places in the South Bay and elsewhere. Not knowing the area, I have no idea which areas are decent and which might be hell to commute from.