Write for us
Want to write for The Femedic? Great! We’ve put together a guide on how to pitch to us and the types of pieces that we publish.
The Femedic exists because we want women and people with vaginas to be able to access better content about their health, that is accurate, genuinely useful, trustworthy, and inclusive.
We know that health is more than the physical symptoms we experience — it’s affected by everything that makes up our world, including emotional, social, cultural, lifestyle, and even political factors. We think it’s essential that health content addresses and understands this complete picture.
That's why we have two content streams: Medical and Editorial.
What we publish
Our Medical stream is content written by medical professionals and responds to questions that are clinical in nature. This mostly pertains to physical and mental health. We usually commission our medical writers to write on specific topics rather than accept unsolicited pitches.
If you are a qualified medical professional and would like to write for us, please send an email introducing yourself to: monica@thefemedic.com
Our Editorial stream covers all aspects of health that are non-clinical in nature. This includes social and political factors, identity, culture, discrimination, gender, lifestyle, and sharing particular experiences. This content is usually issue and experience-lead, and does not require clinical knowledge or expertise to investigate.
If you would like to add references to your piece, we use the Oxford system (footnotes).
The types of Editorial content we publish are:
First-person essays and narratives
These pieces typically describe health and personal experiences with the broad aim of awareness-raising. We are particularly interested in pieces that explore experiences through the lens of underrepresented identities.
Features
We love pieces that are bold and challenging, that encourage our readers to look at particular issues from a new perspective or teach them something new. When you are pitching, bear in mind why you are the best person to write this.
Features are for telling reported stories in more depth, and cover a broad range of women’s health-related topics.
Perhaps there is a specific area of medical research or treatment that is underfunded, perhaps the consequences of a condition affecting women aren’t accurately portrayed by the media, or perhaps there is a community of women disproportionately affected by a certain condition because of lack of funding or lack of awareness. We want you to set the record straight on these issues which are going under the radar of the national media.
Features can investigate specific issues and topics, like this piece exploring the impacts of abstinence-only sex education or this piece investigating whether or not menstrual cups can really shorten your period.
They can also work to amplify certain voices and experiences. For example, exploring women’s experiences treating vaginismus, challenging assumptions about asexuality, or explaining how Black women are (still) being held back by sexual double standards.
Word count & rates
All pieces are generally around 700-900 words, but you are welcome to pitch something longer.
For features, our current rate of pay is £150. For personal essays (no additional reporting or research required), the rate is £100.
How to pitch
Get to know us
We are not a mainstream health publication. Our work is challenging, thorough, and feminist, that always seeks to "fill the gaps" in mainstream health content.
Familiarise yourself with our tone and what’s already been published. It’s a good idea to search our site for any existing pieces on your topic, to make sure you’re not pitching us something we’ve already published. You can do this by typing the topic into the search function on our website, on the top right-hand side of our main navigation (to the right of our logo!). We’d also suggest checking out our Instagram for a broader idea of issues and topics that are important to us.
Get pitching
Once you’ve got your story idea down, it’s time to craft it into a pitch. Your pitch should include:
- A suggested or working headline. This should be attention-grabbing and summarise your piece — readers should get a sense of what they can expect when reading
- A brief summary explaining what your article will be about
- Details of any interviews you will do for the piece. You don’t necessarily need to say someone’s name (unless this is relevant) — just their specialism or expertise is fine. We want to understand what this voice will add to your story
You should also include no more than three clips or writing samples.
There is no one correct way to write a pitch — as long as it’s clear, succinct, and compelling.
Please do not send us a completed article or an article that has already been published elsewhere.
Email your finished pitch to: monica@thefemedic.com. We are a *very* small team and will generally only respond to pitches that we are interested in commissioning. If you do not receive a response from us within two weeks, please assume that your pitch has been unsuccessful on this occasion — but please don’t let that deter you from trying again!
Pitching tips
Here are some tips to help you craft your pitch into a story idea we’ll love.
Things we love
- Fresh, new takes. Hit us with angles we’ve not seen or covered before
- Expertise and experience. If you have particular knowledge or experience that adds a dimension of depth to your story, think about how you can use it
- Research and examples. Having a strong opinion is brilliant, but it’s essential you’re able to sustain your argument
Things we don’t love
- Vague language. If you’re talking about an issue that affects a particular group of women, be sure to make this clear: i.e. women with endometriosis, lesbian women, trans women
- Unverified claims. A claim is when you assert a cause-and-effect relationship between a solution (usually a product) and an outcome (usually a cure or positive effect) that you can’t back up
- Rants. We love that you’re angry — we’re angry, too. But a well-formed argument is very different from a rant. A rant serves the person delivering it; a story serves the people reading it
Good luck!
Page last updated June 2021
