Write for Notes in Progress
We're looking for new authors and article pitches
We have released the first piece from the next issue, 19, of Works in Progress. Read how the FDA secretly set off a boom in drug development for animals, and why we should copy it for humans.
We're looking for short, original pieces for Notes on Progress. While our full-length Works in Progress articles look at a particular phenomenon in great detail and draw out the important lessons, a good Notes on Progress gives a single case of how progress happens (or has happened). Each piece runs to 1,000–2,000 words and sets out an original argument, technology, idea, or policy.
We’re interested in a wide range of topics. In pursuit of decent coffee traced the diffusion of home espresso hardware. How Airbus took off explains why Europe can’t build a Google but did bootstrap a world-challenging aircraft manufacturer. An environmentalist gets lunch is about what intuitive everyday environmentalism gets wrong. Degrowth and the monkey’s paw show hows degrowthers got their way in Britain. Flipping the switch on far-UVC explains how a certain harmless wavelength of light could kill airborne viruses and prevent pandemics.
We’ve run notes on Britain’s interwar apartment boom, the life and legacy of Donald Shoup, we’ve run book reviews, we’ve challenged research papers linking fertility and density, and much else.
We like underappreciated innovations, stories of everyday progress, interesting datapoints, and policy successes from around the world. Tell us why North Korea’s fertility rate is collapsing despite cultural isolation and economic deprivation, or how Angola implemented Germany- and Japan-style land readjustment and what we could learn from it. If you would like to write but don’t have an idea, choose a topic from our list of pieces we would like to commission (although we think that many of these ideas might be suited for longer pieces).
Pitch the piece to us in one or two short paragraphs by emailing wip-pitches@stripe.com. Clearly state your claim, as well as some of the facts and numbers that you think will let you prove it. We prefer concreteness over abstraction, and examples over hypotheticals. Cite sources if you have them. If the idea is promising, we will ask for a draft, edit it, and publish once both sides are satisfied.
We look forward to hearing from you.