14 Pitch Calls from Paying Publications
Where to Pitch This Week (11.01.24) | Editor requests from The Kitchn, The Londoner, Afar, Business Insider, Time Out, and a chance to write about niche Miami Vice trivia.
Hello!
Happy day after Halloween! A day to celebrate candy for 75% off! May all who celebrate have a glorious day.
Life’s a Pitch!
Life’s A Pitch! A column where I take reader stories and help form them into sellable story ideas.
I’d love to get more ideas! If you have a nonfiction idea that you’d like to see in newspapers or magazines, send it in. Ideally, these would become 1000–1500 word essays, op-eds, or lightly reported stories, so keep that in mind when sharing. To submit your idea for a future edition, click here and fill out the form.
Mu-Chieh’s Story
Mu-Chieh sent in this idea for a pitch:
I'd like to pitch a story about accompanying my dad on a visit to the car mechanic. This is a personal essay about witnessing a parent’s vulnerability within an immigrant father-daughter relationship, where a language barrier deepens the emotional distance between us because we cannot communicate our complete thoughts.
Despite my dad asking me to join him on this visit for my English-speaking ability, I am the one who is silent in the end.
Mu-Chieh, this story sounds so wonderful. I love that it’s taking a specific moment (going to the car mechanic with your dad) to talk about a bigger subject (father-daughter relationships).
To pitch this idea, I’d love to know more about why you were the one who was silent in the end. And I’d love to see a bit of the story in action.
What does that mean? In some pitches, we just need to get to the point and give the details. If you’re pitching the 6 Best Canned Wines of the Summer, you don’t need to paint a picture of an idyllic day. We just need to know what wines you want to talk about and why readers would care.
With a personal essay, you get a chance to show off your writing a little more. So, Mu-Chieh’s pitch could start at the car mechanic, translating for her dad. It could start with a quote. Or, maybe we’re right in the middle of Mu-Chieh’s conflicted feelings about her father.
Mu-Chieh, you know how to start this story best and don’t have to use any of those ideas. Just give the editor a sense of your writing style and a sense of the arc of the story. Do you come to a new understanding of your relationship with your dad by the end? Is the relationship better? Worse? It doesn’t have to be some life-changing ending, but give the editor an idea of how you change or how the situation changes from beginning to end.
I really hope Mu-Chieh gets to write this! She could pitch it to Electric Literature, Guernica, maybe Huffington Post, or other publications that take personal essays.
Also from Amber: Write Your Pitch in 30 Minutes - Free Workshop. Find out what editors want in a pitch, avoid common writer mistakes, and flesh out an idea in less time than an episode of The Penguin. Former students sold pitches to Huffington Post, Insider, and The Guardian after watching this workshop. Watch it now - for free!
14 Pitch Calls from Paying Publications
Below, we’ve got editor requests from The Kitchn, The Londoner, Afar, Business Insider, and a chance to write about niche Miami Vice trivia. Plus paid opportunities in home & garden, arts, regional news, lifestyle, Minecraft, Emily in Paris, and more.