Let's go somewhere.
I've found myself with a hankering to work on some longer stories, and with some newfound space on my edit slate, I've got room for a couple features. Pitch me! I'm at derek@motherboard.tv.What am I looking for? Simple answer is character driven stories that use human stories to look at tech and science, and not the reverse. A story with a "holy shit!" moment in it, one that immerses itself in the topic so we can all feel what it's like, rather than just driving by to say "This Exists."I'm not interested in stories that feel like a Wikipedia entry: This happened, then this happened, which caused this to happen, and so on. The biggest questions facing us today—What is the future of the Earth, of work, of love, of humanity through and through?—can't be answered head-on. Rather, they need to be examined through smaller lenses: a single person, thing, movement, or discovery that shine light on far bigger topics without having to outright carry the reader from A-Z.A couple examples that immediately pop to mind: this Rose Eveleth story about prosthetics not being designed for women, which says a lot about the way we design and develop technology; this Hannah Waters story on the internet of elephant seals, in which said elephant seals are more effective data collectors than robots; and this tour of a DIY tank factory from Geraldine Cremin and Pete Kiehart, which opens the door on something I had no idea existed, and offers a small window with a big view on the internal politics, logistical problems, and volunteerism that have shaped the Ukrainian conflict.Those stories cover a wide range of topics, and that's a bit of the point: I'm just interested in finding fascinating humans who are driving the world forward however they may. If you've got something good cooking in that brain box of yours, email me a brief outline of what the story's about, why it matters, and more mundane details including a proposed word count and if you need anything specific to assist your reporting. Our rates depend on the story and writer, but they are competitive.