How to Write for Racket

Want to write for Racket? Hey, that’s great! Less stuff for us to write. But first you’ll have to pitch a story. Like this:

Where should you pitch?

You can send pitches to pitches@racketmn.com or to individual editors at our email addresses, if you’ve worked with us before and think we’re the right person for the story. Probably easiest just to send to the general inbox and let us sort it out though. Please do not send the same pitch separately to multiple accounts!

What should you pitch?

At Racket, we’re interested in pretty much anything and everything… but to be a tiiiiny bit more specific, we’re looking for stories that would otherwise not exist in the Twin Cities news universe. That can mean a topic that’s totally new or a perspective (personal or otherwise) you wouldn’t see elsewhere in town.

We publish arts and entertainment stories, profiles of individuals, explorations of overlooked subcultures or groups, trend pieces about food and drink, investigative political features… all kinds of stuff.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Hm, that doesn’t really tell me all that much, actually,” you aren’t wrong. The best way to get a sense for our tone and the kinds of things we publish is to read the site. You are reading the site, aren’t you?

Here are some stories that started as freelance pitches:

How should you pitch?

Pitches should be short, should follow the simple format below, and should make us want to read the story you’re pitching. Please pitch by email only—texts, Twitter DMs, and Facebook messages are too hard for busy media entrepreneurs like ourselves to keep track of. We will ignore them, whether intentionally or accidentally.

1. Headline

A good headline is often the only thing that’ll prevent your story from dropping unread to the bottom of the internet. Once a pitch is accepted, you may wind up following a different path than you originally set out on. That’s fine. But let’s start from something concrete. No pitch will be considered without a tentative headline.

2. Body

In a few sentences (three at most) tell us about your story in a way that will make us want to read it. Don’t just tell us the subject—let us know what’s unusual, important, engaging, or otherwise noteworthy about it. And tell us how you’d go about covering it.

3. Run date

This one’s easy. Let us know the date the story should run, if it’s time-pegged.

We will try to respond to all pitches as quickly as we can, yea or nay, but you know how email gets. If you don’t hear back within a week, we’re not ignoring you, promise. Feel free to nudge us and bring your pitch back to the top.

That’s all for now. Looking forward to hearing from you.