I hate you. I love you

Pitching fitness pieces to Well+Good

This is part of a monthly series called Path to Publication.

In it, I will unpack the story behind my stories. These reflections are part process, part strategy.

There will be clear takeaways for your own creative work. I will include sample pitches, along with editors’ names and rates (at the time my published pieces went live). I’m sharing the intel I’ve gathered in the hope that it can help you place your own work.

At the beginning of 2022, I had, essentially, zero bylines. Since then (in the span of two years), I’ve published nearly 50 short essays. It’s not like I became particularly prolific. I’ve always been a writer. I just became serious about learning the tips and tricks for placing a piece in a popular outlet. And that’s what I’m looking forward to sharing with you.

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“For someone who writes so many anti-exercise essays, you sure are into fitness,” my husband said one day in the kitchen as I set a timer for my tea and hung from a pull-up bar in the doorway.

I’d begun this practice — dead-hanging for about two minutes each day, or the amount of time it took for the water to warm for my afternoon tea — after reading about how this simple move could improve grip strength, core strength, and shoulder mobility.

Even though so much of fitness culture struck me as ableist, myopic, and obsessive, I was still drawn to simple practices that I could incorporate throughout my day that would make me feel better.

This didn’t feel like a contradiction. So much of what we love is also what we hate. The things we understand most intimately are also the things we are most primed to criticize.

I began to consider this — my impulse to critique the things I was drawn to — and I asked myself a question: could I write a straightforward fitness piece? One that didn’t pull a practice apart, but promoted it instead?

I decided to try. And that’s where I got the idea to pitch the reported essay, “Crawling, Hanging, and Moving Like a Kid Fixed My Back Pain—And Made Me Feel Stronger Than Ever," to Well+Good.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I’d written a number of essays about my struggle with compulsive exercise — and that was something I did not want to inadvertently promote in a piece.

So, I thought to myself — what is the opposite of compulsion?

And as I looked to my children running around in our backyard, I realized that the answer was play.

I’d read a bit about primal movement and its benefits. So much primal movement is intuitive. Children do it naturally. I don’t have to say to my son,

okay, Charlie — time to go climb that tree. Time to start crawling in the dirt.

He does it naturally. His body seems to crave it, in the same way he’d also crave a glass of water and a snack after being outside for a while.

So, I decided to write about this for Well+Good. I’d written for the outlet before — an essay where I critiqued “exercise snacks.” I’d gotten the idea for that essay by flipping through the headlines of my husband’s medical journals. “Exercise snacks” were mentioned in a bunch of the academic articles in JAMA and the AAFP.

Because there was a lot of conversation surrounding the topic in academic spheres, I decided to try to place a popular article that came at “exercise snacks” from a personal angle.

By writing this essay, I established a relationship with the fitness editor, Jennifer Heimlich. I had a great experience working with her, and so I pitched her again for this primal movement piece.

Here’s my pitch:

Dear Jennifer Heimlich, 

On the phone with my mother, I complained of a back ache that just wouldn't go away. "Have you been crawling much with Charlie?" she asked me, referring to my not-yet-walking son. When I responded that, no, I had not been crawling on the ground with my ten-month old, she encouraged me to consider it. She listed other movements I should incorporate into my wellness routine -- crawling, hanging, rocking, and rolling -- and I, with some hesitation, told her I'd give them a shot. 

My mom had suffered from pain herself. In search of relief, she discovered the world of natural movement. Think Paleo -- not in the kitchen, but in the way you move through each day. Children, like my ten-month old son, still move like our ancestors. They climb, crawl, rock, and roll. Adults can reap huge fitness rewards from mimicking this play throughout their own day, too. 

In an 800-word researched personal essay, I would like to write about how hanging from monkey bars and crawling like an infant can provide the range of movement most adults are missing in their workout routines. I would reference the work of people like Erwin Le Corre of MovNat and biomechanist Katy Bowman of Nutritious Movement. 

I loved working with you this past spring on my essay about exercise snacks. My writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, Well+Good, Electric Literature, NBCNews THINK, HuffPost Personal, Insider, and in other outlets. I am a faculty member in the English department at Marshall University.

Jennifer accepted the pitch with one caveat: I would need to do original reporting, rather than just research. I didn’t have much experience with reporting, but it seemed like a fun challenge, so I agreed. She offered $200 for the piece.

Photo by Hannah Wei on Unsplash

I knew exactly who I wanted to interview: biomechanist and author of Move Your DNA, Katy Bowman. My mother had turned me onto her work, and I thought she had the most creative, functional, and fascinating takes on fitness.

I followed her on Instagram, and I noticed that she posted a photo of herself hanging from a tree to advocate the benefits of play-based fitness.

I mentioned this Instagram post in the subject line of my email for an interview request. Here’s how I formatted that interview request:

Dear Katy Bowman, 

I'm a big fan of your podcast Move Your DNA, and your book on diastasis recti really helped me  make lifestyle changes to heal my core and pelvic floor during the postpartum period. 

I'm writing a reported personal essay for Well+Good about how moving like a kid (crawling, hanging, rocking, and rolling) is important for overall fitness. I would love to interview you for the piece, specifically with questions about how hanging and crawling deliver movement nutrients that most of us are missing in our contemporary life. 

I would be filing the essay by Tuesday, June 6th. Would you be available for a short, 15-minute call for me to ask you a few questions? I would love to mention your latest book, Rethink Your Position, in the article, as well. 

You’ll notice I did a few things in this interview request: I made sure to specifically mention that I was very familiar with her work. I provided due dates, and I requested a short amount of her time (15 minutes). I also tried to argue that this interview would benefit her. (I’ll promote your new book!)

Her publicist responded right away, and we set up a time to talk.

Photo by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash

For the interview, I used the app TapeACall to record our conversation. Prior to our conversation, I asked for her permission to record (and I said that the recording would not be shared elsewhere, it would just be used for my own notes).

I prepared the following questions ahead of our interview (and I kept our conversation to the 15-minute window):

How can people benefit from hanging (as shown in your recent IG post)?

Can you hang, crawl, rock, or roll wrong? What would you caution people to watch out for?

Is primal movement the same as natural movement?

Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you would like to tell me?

That last question is one I ask everyone I interview now. I’ve gotten some of the best responses from people by asking them what do you want to say that I haven’t thought to ask?

So much gold results from that question.

Katy Bowman was as lovely as I’d imagined she’d be (she even said hello to my mother in the recording when I told her she was a fan).

Her clear, fascinating responses made writing the piece easy, and I was really proud of the essay I ended up submitting.

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What questions do you have about writing for Well+Good?

What questions do you have about reporting?

Ask me in the comments. And thanks for reading!