What makes for an effective science or environment essay? Freelance Files contributor Michelle Nijhuis explores universal qualities of the best work: It begins with a persistent question that sets the essayist off on a journey of discovery. Also, practical tips on how to get published beyond the essay departments of major magazines.
Sometimes, the tried-and-true ways of reporting are still the best. In the latest Freelance Files column, our contributor shares three old-fashioned techniques for research and writing that, while they may seem less efficient, will actually get you doing your best work.
Freelancer Eva Holland shares her story of how Twitter, over time, became her most important tool to chase new, more rewarding and more lucrative assignments.
Freelancing isn’t all about writing good queries. It’s also about building and sustaining connections between human beings. Dawn Stover has been on both sides of the writer-editor relationship, and shares her lessons learned here.
Longtime science journalist Janet Raloff, editor of Science News for Students, provides tips on how writing effectively for adolescents, while satisfying in and of itself, can also pay dividends in helping us learn to make complex topics accessible to adults.
Journalist and author Angela Posada-Swafford shares the ups and downs of her two-decades-long (so far) freelance life based in Florida.
Freelancer Susan Moran writes about how to write a refined, convincing, colorful query letter and follow the particular pitch path that plays to your passion, talent and financial needs.
Science journalist and editor Hannah Hoag dives into the sad state of affairs that drives freelancers to supplement their income with better-paying work. Photo: Hoag and the CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian Arctic research icebreaker she lived and worked on in 2008; courtesy Bennie Mols.
Writer/editor Amy Westervelt relates lessons learned by herself and her freelance colleagues on the road to financial stability for their reporting endeavour, Climate Confidential. Photo: Westervelt speaks at the Nov 13, 2014, “Food Fight” in Brooklyn. Credit: Mariya Pylayev, Climate Nexus.
Winnifred Bird and Jane Braxton Little, a former SEJ mentor program pair, describe (with humor!) the process of how they turned their shared interest in the Fukushima disaster's affect on forest ecosystems and rural communities into a successful writing collaboration.
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