75 Writing Jobs, Lit Mag Opps, Fellowships, Pitch Calls, and More
Jobs for Writers (6.6.25) | Remote roles at W. W. Norton, Macmillan, and Wallstrait; pitch calls paying up to $2,500; and how to break in and write the perfect pitch!
Welcome to Sub Club’s Jobs for Writers!
The rumors are true. If, of course, by “rumors,” I mean, “what Shannan said last week.” Pitches are back in Jobs for Writers, baby! I’ll see you weekly on Fridays, right here, in this very column, with jobs, lit mag opps, pitch calls, and more.
I figured the best way to celebrate would be to bring a pitching expert in for this week’s How to Break In. And that I did. You can get into that below.
Oh, and! 93% of you were into the expanded job listings, so I’m doing more of that this week.
This is already shaping up to be a long one—lots of juicy pitches and job opps to better help you get that bread—so enough dilly-dallying. Let’s get to the good stuff.
This week, we’ve got →
75 Writing Jobs, Lit Mag Opps, Fellowships, Pitch Calls, and More
15 Paying Pitch Calls
24 Full-Time Jobs
3 Part-Time + Contract Jobs
7 Lit Mag + Volunteer Opportunities
2 Teaching Gigs
3 Fellowships + Residencies
21 Open Opportunities from Past Issues
But first! This week’s How to Break In with writer and expert pitcher Kate Mooney.
How to Break In and Write the Perfect Pitch with Kate Mooney
This week, we’re hearing from Kate Mooney, a freelance journalist, copywriter, and content writer. Full disclosure: Kate is a friend, and we used to work together two personalities ago (ergo, it’s been several years) at a daily newspaper in New York. And once we were both laid off—gotta love those media jobs—she was the first person I went to when I wanted to learn how to write a good pitch.
Pitching is not something I do often, but thanks to Kate teaching me some best practices, I pitched and landed exactly one thing at Vulture. That was all I ever wanted, the highest peak I could dream up, and now I procrastinate on pitching more than I actually pitch. But Kate is still going, with publications at The New York Times, Vox, GQ, and more under her belt.
Ahead, Kate and I chat about how she got started in the pitch game, how she finds copywriting gigs and the right publications to pitch to, and the exact ingredients for a perfect pitch. She also answers some of your burning questions from the subscriber chat, for those who dabbled.
rachael vaughan clemmons: Can you briefly tell us who you are, what you do, and where you’ve been published?
Kate Mooney: Hello! I am Kate Mooney. I’m from New Orleans originally, living in Brooklyn for the past 14 years. I’m a freelance journalist, copywriter, and content writer. I report articles for publications like The New York Times, Vox, GQ, and many others, covering lifestyle, culture, trends, local news, health, and wellness—it runs the gamut. I also write copy and content for brands including LOLA, Bumble, The Downtown Alliance of New York, and more. I have an MFA in Fiction from CUNY Queens, but have been on a bit of a hiatus from that kind of writing (though always hoping to get back to it). In the meantime, I scratch the creative itch with songwriting.
rvc: How did you move into pitching stories? How did any of your prior experience help you get comfortable with the process?
KM: I’ve been at this game for over a decade, and the whole time I’ve been see-sawing between full-time gigs or long-term contract work and bouts of freelancing, sometimes a hybrid of both. I’ve pitched stories from the jump, since I was out of college. Probably the earliest was back in 2010, when I still lived in New Orleans, I submitted an essay about my love of eating oysters to The Oxford American Magazine for their Southern Food Issue, which they accepted. I’ve always had my eye on which pubs are looking for contributors, and if it piques my interest, I’ll pitch ‘em.
I originally moved to Brooklyn to get my MFA, but then I got lured into the journalism world because it paid (you know, nominally), it was a fun community, and I liked the satisfaction of getting my byline up fairly quickly, compared to the slog of editing and workshopping fiction. I got started with this scrappy local blog called Brokelyn, which covered culture and living the “broke lifestyle” in the 2010s. It’s where I met a lot of the folks I’m still friends with today. I also honed some journalism skills, developed contacts that led to pitches and assignments at places like The New York Observer, The New York Post, Vice, Jezebel, Gothamist, etc.
Eventually, I got a full-time editor and writer job at the daily rag where you and I met (heart emoji, for you, not the rag). I’d say the biggest skills I picked up there were like, learning to do entertaining interviews, transcribe, and quickly produce digestible content folks could read between subway stops. I was also health editor during my tenure there, so I learned how to source experts and explain medical jargon in layman’s terms. I think I mentioned this to you recently, but sometimes I’m nostalgic for the time that we had these mid jobs, because they came with salaries and health insurance. And while we weren’t happy there per se, it all feels very quaint to look back on now.
After that gig ended, I took freelancing up a notch because I needed to make money and didn’t want to go back to working in restaurants, like, at all, ever. Maybe that’s the answer to your original question: My biggest impetus for pitching has always come from being broke and having to do it. I do think you build up muscle memory from enough repetition, so essentially, I got comfortable with pitching from pitching.
Anyway, I hit a stride and was publishing a lot. That’s when I got bylines at places like The New York Times, Vox, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Lifehacker, etc. Also, it’s weird to say, but during the pandemic, I was very busy writing, because there was so much to cover. I’m glad I was able to stay afloat with assignments during that insane time.
rvc: Okay, same question, but for copy and content gigs. How did you get your foot in there?
KM: When it comes to copy and content writing gigs, they’ve very much always been a word-of-mouth thing for me. I’ll put out feelers, or a friend or associate will say, “Hey, I’m working over here, they’re looking for copywriters,” or “We need a ghostwriter for this company,” or “This brand needs someone to write blog posts.” The whole, apply to a job listing on LinkedIn thing? I’m truly not convinced those postings are even real.
I guess freelancing journalism prepared me for freelancing copywriting, because it can have a similar cadence of one-off or contract assignments, and meeting your deadline and being receptive to edits without getting too precious is the name of the game. I’ve done a little of everything over the years, from writing product descriptions for a furniture catalog whose name I cannot remember, to ghostwriting a blog for We-Vibe, to contracting at HelloFresh for a few years writing social copy and emails and landing pages, the whole shebang, to writing blog posts about women’s health for LOLA, which I’m doing currently. Sometimes I forget all these old gigs, and they’ll come back to me like it was somebody else's life.
rvc: How do you find copywriting gigs that you vibe with? Do you have a process?
KM: Again, my process is fairly, ~come what may~, but I can speak to my current ongoing freelance gig with LOLA. They are a company that makes organic reproductive and sexual wellness products, tampons and lube and postpartum pads and what not without any fucked up ingredients in anything, and I typically write blog posts for them that explain topics ranging from menstrual care to postpartum and sexual health. My background in health writing really makes me feel well-suited for this gig; it’s a pretty natural fit (you and I even made a zine about periods, come on!), and I’m still mostly flexing the same journalistic muscles.
It feels really good to do copywriting work for a place with a mission you can get behind. Like, I actually respect LOLA and what they do. Going forward, I’m hoping my work at LOLA will help me seek out similar copywriting jobs that I align with. Actually, thinking through this question is giving me guidance for how I might approach finding copy jobs I vibe with, which was your original question…THANK YOU!
rvc: You’re SO welcome. I want to get back to networking, because it sounds like you’re pretty good at it. Can you talk a little more about your approach?
KM: Networking figures in a good amount, particularly with copy or content writing, which I mainly net through word of mouth.
With articles, I do a fair amount of cold pitching, though, where I might not know the editor, but I keep a hawk’s eye on calls for pitches, which you’ll see on X occasionally still, or via newsletters not unlike Sub Club. But I’ve also put in my time networking over the years, going to meet and greets for local publications, or meetups for journalists, or talking back and forth with writers on Twitter way way back when that was kinda fun. You do hear about opportunities that way. Sometimes, the hardest part is finding the right goddamn email address, and then if I know someone, I can say, “Hey, who’s the editor to pitch over there?” and that’s very helpful. It is so silly that information is a thing that’s gatekept.
rvc: Before you mentioned the topics you covered, I was thinking about how you definitely have a beat—you tend to gravitate towards lifestyle, culture, and health-ish a lot. How did you narrow in on that? Was it intentional, or were you just pursuing the things you were most interested in?
KM: I think it’s been pretty natural. I’m drawn to articles that ask meandering questions about culture or trends or human behavior. I like that you can actually arrive at some semblance of an answer to your question if you take the time to report it out and get on the horn and talk to people.
A good example would be when I noticed that at bar after bar, there were no Miller High Lifes in bottles to be found. It turned out to be a real shortage that was happening, and I figured out why from talking to bartenders and beer reps. So that was obviously not a deep, life-changing story, but it was satisfying and fun for me, and hopefully for at least a few people who read it.
I also have a flair for service journalism, or “how to” stories, which tend to cover health topics or propose how someone might get themselves out of a tricky situation; during Covid, I wrote about how people’s roommates were ditching town, and what rights you’d have as a leaseholder left behind. I feel like if I can break down a complicated topic, explain it in layman’s terms so it’s accessible, and give the reader actionable steps to take, I’m almost doing something meaningful or helpful in society. Could it be?
rvc: I also have to mention that one of my favorite pieces of yours is a piece about the em dash for The New York Times. Can you walk us through the experience of pitching there?
KM: Yes! Okay, the em dash phenomenon was an obsession I had, where, personally I love em dashes, but I also noticed that people were making it their personality, similar to when there were all those takes about the Oxford comma. It was the new signifier of…something. If you were a proponent of the em dash, or you hated it, that meant something about who you were deep inside. Folks, often writers but not only writers, were pontificating about it on Twitter, I saw memes about it, and I even saw it come up on dating apps.
I’d been thinking about it for a while, and I might have pitched it to a couple other places first and heard nothing, I really can’t remember. But then I saw a NYTimes pitch guide come out on the Study Hall newsletter, and it was detailed with editors’ contacts. Very helpful! So I found the Styles editor and pitched her. To my shock, she actually wrote back and accepted it. So it was a pretty smooth process, actually.
rvc: Side note: As an expert on the em dash, how do you feel about people thinking that em dash = AI?
KM: I saw that and was like, wow. How have we come to this? It doesn’t really make sense to me, because by that logic, am I AI? Unless it’s a sign of AI actually being good at its job of imitating being human, because humans really love throwing the em dash around. But I reject it, as I reject anything and everything AI. Don’t come for my em dash, bot.
rvc: You’ve written for a lot of recognizable pubs, but you also do a lot of writing for local pubs too. Do you approach writing or pitching for different sized pubs differently? I imagine one is easier slash chiller than the other.
KM: I would say that yeah, local pubs are chiller, often because I might know the editors personally or have a stronger sense of the voice and brand of the site. The reporting might be an event or meeting I’m covering in my neighborhood or elsewhere in Brooklyn, so that’s nice to do a little in-person reporting, or showcase a scene that I think is interesting or could use some press. But I think it comes down to the relationship you have with an editor, and that can be strong even if they’re at a national pub and you never meet them face to face. If you build trust, and you get comfortable with them, you can eventually take more leeway with your pitches, and perhaps it becomes more of a collaborative, brainstorming process, or they’re assigning you ideas, too.
rvc: Okay, I want to get into the nitty gritty and ask some questions we got from our subscriber chat.
In your opinion, what are the elements of a perfect pitch?
KM: A tablespoon of, here’s who I am and where I’ve written. A 1/2 cup of, here’s the story I’d like to cover and why. A ¼ cup of, here’s how I would do it. A teaspoon of, this is the word count and deadline I could manage.
rvc: What is your approach to pitching—are you pitching to places you read exclusively, or are you coming up with a pitch and then finding the best place to pitch it to? What advice do you have for finding the right publications to pitch to?
KM: So it’s a mix. Sometimes it’s that I’ve developed a relationship with an editor at a given pub, and I know that they’ll be communicative and good to work with and they’ll pay me on time, and I also might have a better sense of what ideas they’ll say yes to, so I’ll lean towards pitching them over another site. Other times, I’ll hear about a pitch call, and think, ooh, that outfit sounds like a good fit for me and the types of stories I write, I’ll try them. Sometimes, I will have an idea and struggle a bit over where to try to land it. It might take trial and error, and I usually try not to simultaneously submit, but if I don’t hear back from a place within a few days, I’ll send it elsewhere. I don’t have the time/money to wait.
Sometimes I fan girl over a site, and it will take me a little while, maybe even years, to reach out with a pitch. But publishing there will be a goal of mine I eventually tackle, or at least attempt.
My main advice would be that you gotta familiarize yourself with a site before you pitch them, otherwise you’re wasting your time. What stories do they care about? What’s their voice? What stories have they already covered? Do you even like the site? Is another place a better fit for your story and your style?
rvc: When you’re putting together your actual pitch, how do you balance your voice with a sense of professionalism? Does it depend on the vibe of the publication you’re pitching to?
KM: I have a bit of a formula, which I might reiterate in a subsequent answer, but first, I always introduce myself, say where I’ve written for, and link to my website where they can find samples. And then I typically summarize my story idea in the voice I’d write it in, because that gives them a preview of what the piece would sound like, and they can see if they vibe with that. And sure, I might tailor my voice to the pub, say, if their tone leans more breezy or punchy, vs. more direct or hardnosed, because that shows them that I’m familiar with their content.
When I say how I’ll approach the story, that part is likely more strictly professional, because I’m covering logistical things like who I plan to interview for the piece, or what research I’ll draw on, and how long it might be, etc.
rvc: How long should a pitch be, and how do you figure out the line of just enough detail to keep ‘em interested? For pitches that require research, how would you recommend approaching that—should the work be done before the pitch, after the pitch, or does it vary?
KM: I think it shouldn’t be longer than ~200 words. You want to highlight the most compelling aspects of your story to sell them on it and why it warrants being covered. You do have to do at least a little pre-reporting, both to show the editor you know what you’re talking about, but also because you need that knowledge to figure out what your story should be about. At the very least, even if you just have a hot take about, say, how Partiful sucks, read up on what’s been covered on the topic so far, so then in your pitch you can say how you’re going to take it a step further, or cover a new, unprobed angle.
If you’re doing investigative reporting, you might not have enough information yet to know what the story is to pitch, so maybe first you reach out to a source on background to say, hey I’m interested in learning more about what’s going on with this, for a potential article, can I ask you a few questions? If you’re covering something local, get out of your house and go to that place and see what you can learn.
rvc: Any advice about pitching timelines and or approaching timely pitches?
KM: Approaching timely pitches: don’t sit on a pitch if you want to cover something timely, because you don’t want to miss the window in which coverage would make sense.
As far as pitching timelines, I think it’s a question of organization. Sometimes I struggle with pitching too many things at once, and then I feel nervous they’ll all be due at the same time (IF they’re all accepted, which is unlikely). I try to be a little bit balanced based on what workload I think I can handle. But it’s also about knowing how you work. Lately, I’m realizing the writing has become the quickest step for me; getting the assignment squared away and doing all the interviews and transcribing is more time-consuming. So I try to plan out my calendar based on my deadlines and how much time I need to make them. But you can’t plan out everything, so sometimes you’re very busy, or not so busy. It all evens out, hopefully.
rvc: What tips do you have for optimizing exposure after something has been published?
KM: Typically, I repost the article on my social media if I'm tagged in it, and I try to share it again myself on those same channels. I always email the story to the people I quoted because that's just good manners, and that can also help get more eyes on it, particularly if they share it around too. I have posted stories to Reddit, if the story is of interest to that particular community, but I think you shouldn't make that a habit because I've heard Reddit can flag you. You could do a similar thing posting to a neighborhood group on Facebook. I'm sure there are more paths to exposure, but those are the ones I pursue!
rvc: Anything else you want to add? A thought and/or a prayer?
KM: I guess, despite everything, I still really believe in the written word, and I think it’s a big part of what makes us human? Even though AI is trying to take it from us, it never will in an actual, meaningful way? So keep writing, keep creating! Even if it’s just for yourself.
Kate Mooney is a writer. You can read her reported features in publications including The New York Times, GQ, and Vox; spot her copy for brands like LOLA and Bumble; and hear her original songs on all streaming platforms. Born and raised in New Orleans, she's lived in Brooklyn nearly 14 years but still doesn't "get" winter.
You can find her on X and Instagram and Bluesky, and original music on Spotify.
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75 Writing Jobs, Lit Mag Opps, Fellowships, Pitch Calls, and More
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