Pitches

Peste is a magazine of health journalism, advocacy, and the arts. You can contact the editors at editors@pestemag.com.

How to pitch us: Please send a two or three paragraph pitch to submissions@pestemag.com. It is easier for us to work together from a pitch than a draft. Pitches should tell us: what’s the problem, what’s at stake, why now, and what’s your different or unexpected take. If you are pitching an interview (example), please contact us with you idea before you reach out to the subject. Book reviews (example) must follow our rating system (is this a book you should read before you die or should you die first?).

What we want: Interviews, book reviews, commentary pieces, or poetry. Aggressive, adversarial, iconoclastic, specific pieces that document the decisions, policies, and structures that produce illness and disease. Please be original. Funny is good, too.

What we don’t want: Your version of another article that’s been written before, only this time by you. Nothing that could have been submitted for a class. Nothing that requires a graduate degree to read. Nor anything that contains any of these words.

What we pay: We pay $100 on publication for book reviews and commentary pieces. No, that is not much. But it is $100 more than STAT First Opinion pays — and we only have $3,294 in the bank (as of July 6).