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All your pitching questions, answered
Here at The Drift, we take pitching seriously. The vast majority of our essays begin as cold emails, and, though it may take some time, we read and respond to every message. We know that, from the writer’s perspective, pitching can feel like shouting into the void, and that it can be hard to know which ideas are right for which publications. We’ve put together a detailed pitch guide, which we hope helps make our process feel less opaque.
Now that we’re on Substack, we’d like to use its interactive features to answer any other lingering questions. Tomorrow, our essays editor
will lurk in the comments section of this post to answer any and all of your queries about pitching and writing longform pieces for The Drift.In the meantime, ask away! At the bottom of this email, you’ll see a “Comment” button, which will take you to the right place.
What does The Drift look for in pitches on international stories? I understand that the magazine has published many essays Gaza because of the issue’s importance in the US (and to The Drift’s downtown NYC readership), but there was a story in the past about Gandhi and the Hindu Right.
How does The Drift determine which international stories are relevant? Asking as a writer not based in the U.S.
Here's a question we got on Twitter: "Would you guys ever consider doing an issue called 'The Last Wave,' where it’s all stuff that is still cool/interesting but doesn’t fit the zeitgeist?”