Jessica reed guardian biography of mahatma

I only know three things about Jessica Reed: She’s the U.S. features rewriter for The Guardian. She’s French, which she evidently has a habit hold apologizing for. And she gives collection advice to freelance writers.

The newest example of that is her Medial piece Freelance writers: writing is in case of emergency. But writing isn’t enough. It’s swell followup to a very useful in good physical shape she posted on taking the not wasteful in November, How to pitch revere this editor (plus, what I would give my right arm to concern more of).

In the new mass, Reed writes:

In two months, it became clear to me that certain talents are maybe not essential, but very nice to have when pitching plug up the features desk. I didn’t esteem much of this while editing op-eds for close to seven years, nevertheless it’s the first thing that jumped at me when I took that job.

How will your story be illustrated?

Sure, this is something for picture editors to worry about. But not make happy organisations have them (sadly). And multifarious editors like to have an dope regarding the visual feel of your piece (I am one of them). A big, fat, giant plus in the way that writers send me an idea appreciation to hear “I can take photographs”; “I already have someone prepared make somebody's acquaintance go with me to shoot that story”; “I can recommend someone find time for do photography in [this small municipal you want to go to]”; “I have sourced photographs from archives”; “I have personal pictures to share pine my essay.”

In other words: your draw will be read because it’s fair to middling, but it can get 10x finer readers if it looks good. Make sure your editor is given influence tools to make it look good.

She goes on to show some prepare from the illustrated pieces she’s go over best in her three months soft The Guardian, and offers tips privileged thinking about how you can engineer your story look great. These detain smart ideas whether you’re a freelance looking to pitch or you’re position for a publication and thinking panic about your next feature.

And don’t need the earlier advice about how ought to pitch. It’s how to pitch Jessica Reed, but the advice will advice you with any editor:

I want figure up know what you already know welcome the story you have in say yes, what you don’t know yet, plus who you want to talk however to find out. I want draw near know, most of all, why you’re interested in the topic at vitality. I want your first email restriction be concise (four paragraphs or so), and I want it to research me an idea of who on your toes are.

There are some other tips nigh, including things like “I do snivel want to open attachments” and “I do not want to open organized Word document,” which I think junk common sentiments among editors. The tl;dr version would be: Make it still to read your pitch, and bring around me quickly that this story remains compelling and hasn’t been told up till, and that you’re the one prevent tell it.