How to write for Works in Progress
We're looking for new authors and article pitches.
We’re looking for Works in Progress article pitches. We are especially interested in pieces about:
The history of how states developed effective institutions and built state capacity, plus ways to improve governance and state capacity in developed countries today.
Ways to safely reduce the total cost of nuclear power and other forms of clean energy.
Geo-engineering: could we slow global warming with sulphur dioxide?
Ideas, especially ones already successful somewhere, to make it easier for people to have kids.
Megaprojects: How can we reclaim Dogger Bank from the sea or extend Manhattan? How were other megaprojects done successfully and quickly?
Metascience: how people have improved the practice of science in the past, or created effective research organizations.
Crime and anti-social behavior: clever ways to make society friendlier and safer.
Consumer surplus, or how lifestyle technologies have improved.
Plus our main focuses: housing, infrastructure, global health, and important advances in science and technology.
And we’re open to other subjects as well.
We are interested in a wide range of article types. Some of our best articles have been journalism about breakthroughs in science and technology, like Stephan Guyenet’s early piece on the effectiveness of GLP-1 agonists like semaglutide, and Hiawatha Bray’s on the many uses for silk.
One of our pieces is a ‘how to’ – Nan Ransohoff’s guide to creating an advance market commitment. Another is a diary: Keller Scholl’s account of his time in a human challenge trial for Zika. Perhaps our most popular article ever, Stewart Brand’s The Maintenance Race, is narrative non-fiction.
Some offer small ‘keyhole’ changes that might make significant improvements without a lot of political fuss. John Myers’s case for nuclear federalism is one such example.
The bulk of our pieces are analytical case studies, which look at a particular phenomenon in great detail and draw out the important lessons of that. This category includes Nick Cowen’s account of how the norms that control crime are formed, using campaigns against drunk driving as a case study; Samuel Watling’s history of British housing shrinkflation in the 1960s and 1970s; Brian Potter’s story of the decline of cut and cover in tunnel building; and Eleanor West and Marko Garlick’s explanation of the massive half-success of upzoning in New Zealand.
A few of our most popular articles have been big theses, taking a broad sweep over a whole subject, like The Housing Theory of Everything, and Samuel Hughes’s argument for ‘easy’ architecture, but we are generally not interested in pitches like these for now.
If you want to pitch us an article, please send over 1-3 short paragraphs summarising what your article will claim, or report on, or argue, to the email address below. Your paragraphs should clearly show what idea and/or argument your piece will demonstrate and what core facts you will rely on to support your claims. For example, if you were pitching The Housing Theory of Everything you might write:
Housing is much more important than anyone thinks – and therefore so are housing shortages. Not only does it affect our budgets, because less housing means higher prices and rents, but it has knock-on effects on a huge range of other things.
It worsens productivity growth because people cannot move towards the best jobs. It lowers innovation because industries cannot cluster close together and enjoy serendipitous collaborations. It raises income and wealth inequality because homeowners enjoy wealth increases while renters do not. It raises regional equality because lower-skilled workers are deterred from migrating and get ‘left behind’. It raises obesity because sprawl means people drive rather than walk – and it worsens the climate for the same reason. It even contributes to falling fertility.
If we accept this, then tackling housing shortages, by coming up with politically popular and durable mechanisms to deliver more housing, should become one of our top priorities.
Please include some of your best statistics and examples here too, to give us a sense of how rich your piece might be.
The next step, if we think your argument is interesting, important, and possibly true, is that we will ask you for an article outline of 1-2 pages of bullet points. This should flesh out your argument in a little more detail. In particular it should draw out sources, anecdotes, examples, details, data, and statistics that support various planks of your argument. If we like your outline then we will agree on a deadline for a first draft, and plan to publish the finished piece once both you and we are happy with it.
We also run Notes on Progress, which are shorter than full WIP articles. We’re happy to consider pitches for these as well.
Please send pitches to wip-pitches@stripe.com. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.