I hate to break it to you, but magazines don't call freelance writers out of the blue and offer them stories. Authors write story query letters (or pitch letters) to editors, and every once in a great while, and editor tells them to write that story.
This is Pitch Week at The Publishing Spot, and I'm inviting fledgling writers to send in prospective story pitches for magazines. We will edit these together, and send the revised product to the magazine of your dreams.
If you need some initial guidance, Pat Marcello has a good guide to pitching magazines, Jed Hartman gives an editor's POV on magazine pitches, and finally, Miss Snark points us to a site dedicated to rejected pitches.
Most importantly, I've included a story pitch that I wrote after the jump. That story was published in Newsday a few weeks later...
Want to join the conversation? Send along your pitches for reader review! Sample Newspaper Pitch
By Jason Boog
Over a year ago, I rode around Corona, Queens with two young police officers on nighttime patrol. That night, we received countless calls involving Latino immigrants. Both officers were very frustrated that they couldn't speak Spanish, and felt overwhelmed by their beat.
Last October, the civil rights group, National Council of La Raza, announced that Latinos make up 43 percent of all drug convictions in this country. If law enforcement officers can’t interact with immigrant communities, I think these lopsided arrest rates will keep rising. I want to write a New New Yorkers piece that explores one NYPD training program, "Streetwise: Language, Culture and Police Work in New York City," analyzing how police officers prepare to work in immigrant communities.
The "Streetwise" program was created by Launcelott Smith, a celebrated professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The program trains rookie officers in the cultural and language specifics of immigrant neighborhoods. I want to find out how many officers have taken the program and how the classes work. With Professor Smith's help, I can interview the multicultural instructors and Latino officers involved in the program, looking at the immigrant language barrier.
I'll also visit Dagoberto Orrantia, a Puerto Rican language professor at John Jay. Orrantia has developed Spanish glossaries for law enforcement officers, and he has extensive trial translation experience. This professor can give me some real-life examples of the language problems facing officers, and help me find Latino leaders that cope with this problem in their communities.
Welcome Media Bistro readers!
If anybody is still interested in having a story pitch discussed at The Publishing Spot, drop me a line!
Posted by: Jason Boog | July 5, 2006 3:59 PM | Permalink to Comment