Pitch me a travel essay!

Wild Writing is now open to essays and guides on place and writing

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me pitches! I’ve received dozens of insightful and compelling ideas for essays and travel guides, and I wish I could say yes to many more! Unfortunately, I have reached the limit on my freelance budget for now. I hope to commission more of these in June, pending new paid subscriptions. I am doing my best to get back to everyone in a timely fashion. Apologies if you’ve not heard from me yet! But for now, I’m no longer accepting new pitches.

If you’d like to help me assign more essays on travel and writing in the future, consider becoming a paid subscriber. All of the money coming in from paid subscriptions is going right back out to assign stories to fellow writers this month, as I work towards building a space for a great variety of voices and perspectives on places and writing. Your support means the world. <3

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I’m nearing the end of my big Oregon road trip. For the last two days, I’ve been in the Applegate Valley, a lush pocket of wineries and orchards tucked into the confluence of three mountain ranges in Southern Oregon. It’s only a dozen or so miles off I-5, the West Coast’s main artery of traffic and chain restaurants. But it feels like another world; the roads are quiet and swooping between rows of grapes and fruit trees. Thanks to a microclimate created by all these mountains, you’ll often find a skylight of sunshine here, even when clouds cover nearby towns.

Yesterday, I went for a hike with a fellow travel writer who lives in the area, and we got to talking about all the publications we used to write for and how so many of them no longer exist. With wind whipping our hair and the skylight of sun above us, we talked about essays and how there are fewer and fewer places to send our first-person travel narratives these days. It seems everything is a top-ten list or a destination guide. So many publications seem to be ignoring the human perspective and the stories that make travel so special.

Hiking along the Applegate Ride Trail

Wild Writing is about the craft and experience of writing. But it’s also about place. And if I’m going to complain about a lack of place-based narratives in publishing these days, maybe I should do something about it. At the end of that hike, I sat down on the patio of a winery on the Applegate River and started taking some notes on how I could do that right here. While I love telling you about the places I visit and how I’m thinking about places and experiences from the perspective of a working writer, I want to expand on what I can cover on my own. I want to create a space for the kind of stories that so many of us are hungry to read.

That’s where you come in!

Wild Writing is now open to pitches or submissions from writers on place and writing. And I would love to hear your stories! The rate is $200 for about 800 words. (I would love to pay more than this, and as I gain more paid subscribers, I will.)

In this new section of Wild Writing, we’ll look at how place shapes our writing and how writing impacts our experience of a place. We’ll go behind the scenes on your last reporting or press trip and magnify the personal experiences that shaped how you moved through a landscape, a culture, or an assignment.

Pitch me a travel essay that incorporates the act of writing in some capacity. Or an essay on writing that’s rich in place-based details.

Let’s dig into how a place impacted your writing or how your writing impacted your experience of where you were. Most importantly, I’m looking for compelling place-based stories that appeal to fellow writers.

I’m also open to destination guides that are specifically geared towards freelance writers, such as The Freelance Writer’s Guide to Portland, Oregon. (That one is in the works!) Freelance writer destination guides should tell us where to work and where to get inspired in a specific destination. What’s the literary scene look like in that city or small town? What would a curious writer want to see or experience while they’re visiting? If you’re interested in writing one of these, please pitch me first. Tell me the destination you want to cover, what makes it compelling for writers, and why you’re the person to write the guide.

How to Pitch Wild Writing

• Send pitches to Britany.robinson@gmail.com

• Please include “Wild Writing Pitch” in the subject line of your email.

• Specify if you’re pitching an essay or a Freelance Writer’s Guide to…

• Include a suggested headline.

• Tell me about your idea and why you’re the person to write it.

• Include 2-3 clips of previously published work.

• I prefer pitches to completed pieces, but if you’ve already written an essay that might be at home here, I’m happy to read it.

I’ll be back at my desk in Connecticut this week, and I’m so excited to start rethinking this little corner of the internet as a collection of travel stories that live alongside craft-talk, inspiration, and resources for writers.

I want Wild Writing to inspire you to get out into the world and write about it. And I want to read your stories!

Thank you for being here and supporting that mission, even as it occasionally shape-shifts and settles into something new.

OK, now let’s get to some more good things for writers!

Good Stuff for Writers

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