Professional Development Month: Pitch Slam 2

Some of our field’s finest science editors will share what stories they’re looking for and give advice for how to pitch their publications.  As a participant, you will have the opportunity to present a 90-second story pitch of your own and receive live feedback from the panel.  The pitch slam will end with a Q&A during which you can ask general questions about pitching.

This session features:

Sarah Lewin Frasier, the assistant news editor at Scientific American.
Gemma Tarlach, a senior editor at Atlas Obscura.
Lauren Wolf, Americas Bureau Chief at Nature.
Amanda Yarnell, the editorial director at Chemical & Engineering News.

Moderator: Richard Sima, freelance science writer, DCSWA VP

If you are planning to present a pitch, please send a message to zoom@dcswa.org with the subject line “DCSWA Pitch Slam 2 – I have a pitch” (you can leave the body text blank if you’d like). This will help us get a rough estimate to reserve enough time for pitches.

Note: this session will not be recorded and attendees are expected to keep others’ pitches confidential.

The event will be held on zoom. Register here.

Editor bios:

Scientific American | Sarah Lewin Frasier

Sarah Lewin Frasier is the assistant news editor at Scientific American; she plans, assigns and edits the Advances section of the monthly magazine, as well as editing online news. Before joining Scientific American in 2019, she chronicled humanity’s journey to the stars as associate editor at Space.com. Sarah holds an A.B. in mathematics from Brown University and an M.A. in journalism from New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

Atlas Obscura | Gemma Tarlach

Gemma Tarlach joined the Atlas Obscura team as a senior editor and writer in February 2021. A former senior editor at Discover, she has incurable wanderlust and a tendency to research her way down rabbit holes. Her curiosity and love of exploration have taken her across the continents, including Antarctica, where she spent 22 months as a cook and baker at McMurdo Station. She also served as a consular officer at the American Embassy in Moscow, and as pop music critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. During her seven years at Discover, she indulged her lifelong passion for dinosaurs and other wondrous beasts in her popular Dead Things blog. Gemma is a high school dropout and a graduate of Columbia University, with a master’s degree in science journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of the historical novel Plaguewalker. An East Coast native happily transplanted to Wisconsin, she spends her free time with her two rescue dogs and 120,000 honey bees. And yes, she has named all of them.

Nature | Lauren Wolf

Lauren is the Bureau Chief for the Americas at Nature, managing a team of talented reporters covering cutting-edge science and science policy. She earned a Ph.D. in bioanalytical chemistry at Boston University and was a postdoc at the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) before realizing her calling as a journalist. She was standing in a dark laser lab at NIST alone — again — and decided what she really enjoyed was communicating science. Before joining Nature, Lauren worked at Chemical & Engineering News, first as a reporter, then as the head of the science team, sculpting stories about the molecular world. She lives and works in Washington, D.C.

Chemical & Engineering News | Amanda Yarnell

A chemist by training and a journalist by passion, Amanda has held various writing, editing, and leadership roles at C&EN since 2001. She earned her B.A. in chemistry at Johns Hopkins and her M.S. in chemistry at MIT, where she soon discovered that as a science journalist she could merge her fascination with the power and beauty of chemistry with her long-time love of telling stories. She currently leads C&EN’s editorial, product, and audience engagement teams from her home office in Somerville, Massachusetts.