Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food
Useful Tips, Interviews, and Stories to Inspire Food Writers and Bloggers
I had my 15 minutes of fame in December, when The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and NPR included the cookbook I co-wrote with chef Craig Priebe, The United States of Pizza, in their 2015 holiday round-ups of best books or cookbooks of the year.
It was a giddy time because, as you know, a cookbook review in The New York Times is the Holy Grail. Emails flew as my agent and publisher discussed [Read more…] about For a Cookbook Review, is Testing Recipes Essential?
A guest post by Cheryl Sternman Rule
In our social media ocean, most of us swim, flail, float, glide, and sputter, sometimes all in a single day. We do our best not to drown as we navigate crowded platforms, with varying degrees of success, enthusiasm, and begrudging obligation.
We also play favorites.
I, for one, love Instagram. Instagram has grown my network in ways I both couldn’t have imagined and didn’t know I needed.
Yes, I use other platforms, too, but my heart belongs to [Read more…] about 4 Ways to Use Instagram Strategically
Looking for a paid outlet for your food writing?
Recently Lucky Peach launched a new website featuring “daily essays, recipes, restaurant recommendations, comics, and other miscellany,” says editor Chris Ying.
That means they need lots of content, which is the best news ever for freelance food writers. Here are some guidelines for submission:
1. Write for a monthly theme, tied to the [Read more…] about Submit Your Writing Now to Lucky Peach
I’m always telling people to write for pay, and to ask to be paid well. But some food writers write for self expression, or to get clips, and money is not the most important thing.
If so, these publications might be right for you. They pay anywhere from nothing to not much, but offer the satisfaction of publication:
A guest post by Paula Panich
Fueled by frustration and a manuscript of unpublished culinary essays with recipes, I spent two years writing letters to agents.
Silence.
Only one wrote back with regrets: She hadn’t heard of M.F.K. Fisher.
Fit to be tied, I swore I’d never write again. Then I thought: The literary magazines! Why not make a game of getting published?
Hundreds of small magazines buzz under our radar. These publications—some print, some online, are known as literary magazines and journals. They’ve been quietly present since [Read more…] about My Year of Submissions to Literary Magazines
John Kessler explains how he gets repeat assignments.
Freelance writers like John Kessler are rare — the kind of writer editors can count on, who can tackle just about any story and come through at the last minute.
John is the full-time dining columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On the side, he freelances for Garden & Gun, Food Arts (recently deceased), GQ, and has written for Cooking Light and Every Day with Rachael Ray.
What does it take to be the writer editors call upon? Kessler has ideas:
Q. Do you pitch new publications or do editors come to you?
A. My best work always comes from magazines where I’ve [Read more…] about How to be the Writer Magazine Editors Want
Recipe Editor Bonnie Benwick at the Washington Post is open to pitches. (Photo courtesy of Deb Lindsey.)
Bonnie Benwick, deputy food editor and recipe editor at the Washington Post, is obsessed with good recipes. She tests and edits a slew of them every week for the paper’s Food Section, and wrote the Post’s first cookbook.
She also manages a crew of 30 testers, sometimes makes dishes at home for the photo shoots, and is not above running around town to find a prop or ingredient for a dish.
We met on e-mail, when she told me she was reading my book, Will Write for Food, while on vacation! More recently she interviewed me on cooking smarter, and after discussing my rant on not specifying the amount of salt in recipes, she wrote this feature article: ‘Salt to taste,’ taken with a grain of regret. Here are her thoughts on what makes a good recipe for the Washington Post, should you wish to pitch her:
Q. Where does the Washington Post get its recipes ?
A. It’s a mix. I choose some from new cookbooks, some come from [Read more…] about The WaPo’s Bonnie Benwick: “Send Me a Clever Recipe”