Open query letter to travel editor of Midwest Living after listening to her presentation

Hey girlfriend!

I’m going to dial down my snarkomatic quip-generator for this letter. I learned during your presentation that while you enjoy making snide comments to degrade writers and the writing profession you claim to love so much that you only do it for 5-10 percent of your job, you are not a fan of hearing snide comments from writers. For the bile that remains, I’m sorry.

I’m also sorry to see that perhaps another trait you carried over from newspaper writing to magazine writing is an unhealthy dose of cynicism. I feel lucky that I was able to escape newspapers after several years with my enjoyment for writing and hearing from other writers intact, and that I am able to translate those skills into writing award-winning magazine features. I see that you’ve applied for an American Society of Magazine Editors award and won a gold recently from the American Society of Travel Writers. Congratulations! It was interesting to find out during your presentation that my awards are meaningless since editors like you do all the work that earned those awards while we writers apparently stumble through life helplessly spouting out words and sentence fragments with no chance of being understood without an editor taking over and writing it herself. Thank God there are editors out there who, rather than work with writers and see them as colleagues, have the writers simply do the scouting so the editors can write the features themselves. It’s good to know that while a writer’s style can ruin a pitch by being unprofessional (like this very letter!), you simultaneously believe that style doesn’t matter because it’s your job to fix said writing.

It’s wonderful that in no way does this competing set of views on query letters scream out to you a big problem. The style or formality of a pitch letter has less to do with a writer’s chances at your magazine than your personal idiosyncrasies and gut response based on ethereal moods. I typically start an email more formally and with respect and a hint of dignity, as I believe many in the business would want to be treated. Your advice to a room full of writers, some of whom may not know better, was to start out a query with a simple “hey” and the editor's first name. Seeing that as a sign of maturity versus opening an email with an address as a sign of amateur writing – I’m still trying to process that bucket of gold nuggets.

I actually enjoyed, in all sincerity, what you said about branding – that readers come to a brand for specific needs. With travel writing, you want the reader to imagine herself at that location. You like small-town content like articles on destination bakeries. I suggest you listen to yourself on this one because minutes later you casually dismissed any possibility of appealing to younger readers by expanding this limited travel focus while at the same time lamenting the median reader age of 52.

As you suggested in your presentation, you like people who want to help write for you, but I’d much prefer to help you in your presentations. You have a room full of people, yes, actual people, in various stages of their communications careers. They come to listen to someone provide insight on travel writing or publishing. The insight they get instead is how jaded the process is toward writers. And while the jokes may receive a few chuckles, they are at the expense of some of the very people who are there to learn, earnestly, and with humility in such tough times. These are people who seem to be looking for something to hold on to in an ever-diluted field. I consider myself fortunate to have a position where I can share others’ stories and experiences. I wanted to see what was out there for the stories I find that don’t fit in my position’s goals – for instance, traversing a red-scoria gravel road through more than 30 miles of cow pastures and burning coal veins in October, when every hill crested reveals a new panorama reminiscent of colorized photographs from the 1950s, like a Technicolor fairy tale come to life. The fields of wild sage and tall grass sway like neon-green ocean waves sunder a brilliant North Dakota sunset. The red ribbon of the road winds through the small valley to the next round hilltop. Cattle, at first unnervingly close or even on the road, become comfortable witnesses of a journey where few other cars travel in favor of the tourist mecca known as Medora, N.D.

But why put in the work as a lowly writer not worth the two words of a byline? I don’t get bylines often, and am comfortable with the fact that some stories don’t get them because of the official nature of the piece. But to make a blanket statement that the writers wishing for a byline in your magazine need not apply goes against both your own website's writer’s guidelines and against any writer’s wish to diversify his or her portfolio.

The sad fact is you can treat us like dirt because there are so many of us. We are lost amid legions, and more often than not, we give away our work for free for the chance to stick out of the throng. My venom-filled sarcastathon chock full of grammar tics and run-ons may keep you feeling busy and superior, but will not change things when the next writer is willing to do the grunt work of pre-reporting for just two measly words, perhaps a hyphenate. Oh, you don’t do bylines? The next one will do it simply for the cost of travel! Side note: sorry to hear your personal travel budget has been cut to a scandalous $7,000 a year. I’m sure many in the room who are piecing together freelance jobs to eke by felt your pain.

I don’t write this as a “diva,” although it may be easy to dismiss me as such. I have no wish to write for people who denigrate the profession. Instead, I write it with all the feeling I can gather for other writers who will put up with such belittling from the one person on earth who should understand the various, sometimes wonderfully invigorating challenges inherent in writing, the editor. I understand that your job, like many, has a certain grind to it. I’m sure you have to deal with certain types of people (like me!) that make life a little less worthwhile, day in, day out, without end. I’m sure you find yourself dispensing the same advice again and again to no use because the next person has not heard that advice and will make the same mistake. It’s the nature of working with people. But, please, remember that they are people.

Sincerely,

A writer (I will withhold my byline here as well)