Lily Wulfemeyer (‘20) majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. They currently work as a content strategist for The Pitch, an alternative news publication in Kansas City. In December’s interview, Lily discusses challenges and rewards discovered working in the pandemic, and the rich value of stories and the humanities in the workplace.
When did you graduate from Rice? What has post-graduation life been like for you?
I graduated from Rice in May of 2020—yikes! I graduated with a B.A. in English, a Concentration in Creative Writing, and a Minor in Museums and Cultural Heritage.
Post-graduation life has been pretty well-dominated by the pandemic for me; I spent the summer after graduation in the Houston apartment I lived in for two years while at Rice. I did freelance work as a marketing agency and copy editor. I read a lot of books. I wrote. I spent time with my life partner and cared for them when they got sick with Long COVID through work (they’re doing much better now!). I spent a lot of time on calls with my friends, just existing together. I tried to just shake off the intensity of school and what was a really anti-climactic end to my college years. I eventually moved back to my hometown of Kansas City and took a couple of months off to care(-give) for a sick relative, who recently passed. The last year and a half has been focused largely on caregiving, coping with what’s been happening in the world around us, and working to build new post-school support systems.
What line of work are you currently in, and how long have you been doing it for? What does it entail, and what do you enjoy about it?
I work in local journalism at an alternative news publication in Kansas City called The Pitch—I started working there six months ago when I took over from the Director of Strategy. My title is Content Strategist, which has as broad of a scope as you might expect. So, while I say I work in journalism, I also work in strategy, team leadership, marketing, copywriting, editorial, even a little sales—my job is hybrid in every sense of the term. But my favorite part of my work is the editorial side. My editorial work is focused largely on the print magazine (as opposed to digital-only stories) as I do the first pass on all of the pieces, giving high-level edits, and I’ve become the accidental/unofficial sex, love, and relationships editor.
Also, marketing has been a thorn in my side for many years. I kept getting shunted into marketing positions rather than editorial positions when I was seeking out internships in my undergrad years, largely because I started copywriting and marketing for work when I was eighteen. My role at The Pitch will gradually transition over the next few months to be more focused on editorial, but I’m actually going to miss the marketing. Writing marketing copy and organizing marketing strategy is really fun when you can do it for something you care about—I get to do it for local journalism, events that support the local food economy and restaurant owners, and I am allowed (even encouraged!) to swear and make cheesy puns as I do it. That’s about as good as it gets!
How is The Pitch different from other traditional news media?
The Pitch is freaking cool because we’re an independent, alternative news publication and absolutely none of our content—magazine included—is behind a paywall! The literal definition from Wikipedia is as follows: “Alternative media are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media (such as mainstream media or mass media) in terms of their content, production, or distribution.” Alternative news-media remains critical throughout the nation, with most large cities hosting an alt pub. Houston has one called the Houston Press.
We’ve seen a trend in the last many years of legacy journalism and mainstream media taking a “middle road” and “considering both sides” when covering critical issues. This too often means siding with oppressors by default, and giving dangerous and centrist/right-leaning voices a platform that they do not merit. Journalistic neutrality is a fraught, slippery idea that can easily become a way to side with the establishment or avoid saying hard truths outright. At its best, alternative news does the opposite—we have no obligation to pander or “offer a platform to all voices.” At The Pitch, we often strive to present more left-leaning views and to cover local stories that would be otherwise overlooked.
Another significant difference between us and a publication like the Houston Chron, for example, is that we’re not a breaking news organization. We lean towards more in-depth political, culture, and dining features. If you’re like me and you care about local news but find the idea of working in breaking news to be too daunting, spend some time looking into alternative news!
What is the pitching process like, and how do you find inspiration for ideas?
Thanks to the pandemic nuking our typical editorial process and our ability to pay for as many stories as we used to, pitching has been really wishy-washy lately. We’re getting a little more structure back, which is nice, but this has been our process for the last few months.
For the magazine, our Editor in Chief sends out an email to a listserv of all of our freelancers asking for story/photo essay pitches. Some are more formal than others, based on how long the freelancer has been working with us. Our EIC mostly manages accepting, rejecting, or workshopping the pitches with input from the Digital Editor and me. The criteria include how feasible we think the pitch will be to execute, how appealing the story will be to our readers, and how many pages there are in the magazine. For example, Kristen Thomas will usually email me a couple of ideas at one or two sentences each. We’ll email back and forth about what angle makes the most sense for the coming month, and then we might have a call to flesh out more ideas. There might be a few emails over the next couple of weeks where I check in on progress or she asks questions, until she files the story and we get to work on edits.
Most of our digital stories come from our EIC, Digital Editor, or myself assigning stories to interns and more regular writers. We also accept digital pitches on a rolling basis, most of which go to our EIC. As we regain more structure, I’m hoping we can send out weekly emails to our more regular writers outlining what news/events/shows/art/people we’d like covered that week, while also continuing to openly solicit writers’ pitches on a rolling basis.
As I’m not a staff writer or a freelancer trying to make my living off of writing stories, I have the luxury of being very choosy about what I cover. I am partial to stories about the local art scene, specifically the KC literary world. I get some of my ideas from press releases that I receive, as I can get between 5 and 20 per day—for example, (such was the case when) I found out about the KC Public Library’s new Wikipedian in Residence position, thanks to a press release, which led to a really fun feature. Some of my other pieces—and a number of pitches I have stored up for when I have the time in the future—relied on me paying attention to trends around the city, going to new places and stores that interest me, following people and places I like on social media, and asking around at the office, because I’m surrounded by some very knowledgeable locals.
Pitches for my own stories are loosey goosey since the Editor in Chief trusts my judgement. Usually I’ll just send him a Slack message like, “Hey, this person seems cool, can I have a spread in the magazine to write about them/can it be added to the digital editorial calendar?” He usually gives me the go-ahead, or if he wants to understand the angle better, he’ll ask a few more questions. I’ll give more details to him or other writers if I feel like I need advice.
That being said, here’s a pitch that I submitted as an assignment during one of the rounds of interviewing to get my job. For a pub like The Pitch, this is how a strong, formal pitch should be structured. It contains a suggested headline (hed) and subhead (dek) that match the magazine’s voice, some background info about the subject I want to cover including related stories, a proposed lede (or “thesis statement,” if you will), and 1-3 possible sources. Some publications might also want a proposed word count. This example is a bit long as far as strong pitches go, but that’s because I was proposing a large, three-part piece. And I did end up writing it! (Also, if you’re interested in freelancing, always ALWAYS pitch an editor before you actually write the piece. Please.)
HED: Howl’s moving independent bookstores
DEK: Two local indie favorites are growing up and moving out
Two of the most popular bookstores in the Kansas City/Lawrence area are finding new homes right around the corner from their original locations. Wise Blood Booksellers just moved back home to Mills Record Company (their parent store), which, according to a newsletter, will allow them to carry more stock, be open 7 days a week, and generally live longer. This summer, Raven Book Store in Lawrence will be leaving the storefront that they’ve occupied since their opening in 1987 for new digs on Massachusetts Street. On Instagram, they said that they needed more space to both manage online orders and in-person browsing (plus they’ll probably get more foot traffic). Given a generous word count, I could also throw Bliss Books & Wine in there and reach out to the owners about trying to open up a brick-and-mortar store in the current market.
The article would be a 2- or 3-part case study on the state of indie bookstores in the pandemic. Are the moves motivated by good growth only or a shrink in sales? How is the pandemic reshaping the way we consume art and literature, and how does this affect our local stores? It would also be a reminder to buy local, with an additional “resist Amazon” flavor via Danny Caine (author and owner of the Raven) as a nice follow-up to the Raven’s recent feature in the New Yorker.
I’ve interacted with the owner of The Raven in the past by email, so I would reach out to him there for an interview. As for Wise Blood, I’d start by reaching out to the team over email (——@gmail.com). If that fails, I would simply head to the store and make contact that way. Same goes for Bliss Books & Wine.
You mention some collaborative aspects of your job (for instance, your work with Kristen Thomas). Could you talk a bit more about the social aspect of your job as a content strategist?
The way my job is set up to be hybrid, I have projects I work on with literally every other full-time employee. I also work with our freelancers including writers, photographers, and illustrators to edit and coordinate media for the magazine. Lastly, we get invited to a lot of PR and press events so occasionally (when I have the time) I’ll attend such events to represent The Pitch and network. I rarely go to PR events to do an interview for a story as I go about finding and writing my features differently than a general staff writer might—but I will sometimes accompany other employees, interns, and writers to press events to support them as they do interviews. The BEST event I’ve been to was a small, televised press conference with Kansas City native Jason Sudeikis for a local fundraiser, Thunder Gong. My co-worker tried to get him to promise that there would be three more seasons of Ted Lasso. Tragically, no promises were made, but the whole event had a super wholesome, local vibe.
Being a content strategist sounds like a very fulfilling yet demanding career. Do you get burned out from the intensity of work? How do you cope with stress?
I’ve waffled quite a bit on how personal to get, but there’s a lot I was ill-prepared for upon graduation and entering the workforce that I think is important to share with students.
While I love my job, I love the publication I work at, and I adore my co-workers, I don’t want to sacrifice my mental or physical health for them. But, when I started, The Pitch was run by a different ownership team that was struggling to get the magazine through the pandemic. This led to me being severely overworked—I was working 60-80 hours/week, running essential parts of the business, and receiving no overtime—and enduring other workplace abuses. As I wasn’t the only one facing this, a few of my co-workers and I fought for the right to speak to an HR representative for multiple months. Once our demands were finally met, the HR rep was horrified by our workplace conditions, so the ball got rolling pretty quickly on addressing them. Fast forward a number of months, and our former employers/the owners of the paper have sold the publication to a new ownership team that includes one of our current employees, and will hopefully include more as time goes on. The Pitch is a crucial organism for the Kansas City area, so I’m happy to see that it’s both surviving for the sake of the community as well as gradually morphing into an environment that can provide for its employees, in turn.
That’s the biggest move I’ve made to prevent burnout. Kind of intense, huh? My more mundane and daily practices include a healthy dose of compartmentalization, scheduling time to spend with friends and family like it’s an Olympic sport, and, unless we’re in a demanding deadline period, I don’t respond to messages outside of working hours.
What are the most exciting projects that you have worked on? What is something that surprised you in your current line of work?
One of my favorite projects every month is to work with our local sex writer, Kristen Thomas, on her magazine column Keep Them Coming—she pitches me ideas, we workshop them, I do my own research, and then I edit the column, (which is) a process that can take quite a bit of back and forth and a few drafts. She’s done some amazing pieces on polyamory in the pandemic, how to have more sex in winter, and guides to local sex shops. There’s little to no regular and consistent coverage on sex, as well as love and relationships, in other major outlets in the area—her writing has proven essential to our local Midwestern community, (and) as a result, and it’s been an honor to help her build her column.
As far as what’s surprised me: I run an internship program! Technically, this was part of my known job duties when I accepted the position, but the reality is always a bit more daunting when it’s no longer on paper and the rubber hits the road. Primarily, I am in charge of the design internship program (everything from recruitment to curriculum), and I mentor select editorial interns on particular projects, usually magazine features. Some of the design interns are young art students, some are married folks ten years older than me—it runs a gambit—but I’ve grown so much with these folks. I spend a lot of time teaching them about marketing-oriented design, but I’ve been surprised and warmed by their willingness to teach me, in turn, what I don’t know due to my lack of formal design training. They’ve all been so enthusiastic to share their personal projects and design passions with me, and I feel that we’ve truly grown alongside one another. This part of my position has certainly piqued my long-term interest in teaching, which has always been a latent (passion) of mine.
What experiences (pre-undergrad, at Rice, or post-graduation) influenced your decision to pursue this career? How did your training in the English major help you with the type of work you’re currently doing?
I wrote a few pieces for The Thresher and found that I loved writing features and human interest stories, which is the bread and butter of The Pitch, as we’re not a breaking news organization.
Also, my time as an English major taught me not only how to write, but how to not lose my head when I was writing upwards of 30 or even 50 pages a week. I had to keep consistent quality, write papers with thoughtful and well-researched evidence (a tenet of good journalism, as well), and become an expert at executing an idea from conceptualization to the final written product. In my world now, there’s very little structure to my days and it’s up to me to make sure I pitch features and make them happen, and to make sure that I get all of my writing done on an appropriate calendar. I produce large amounts of copy each day for different purposes—newsletters, social media posts, general marketing copy, PR-style announcements, feature stories, and editorial notes. If I have a day where the quality and volume of my writing flags, I get behind. It’s a stressful level of output, but as I said, being an English major and loading myself up with writing-based courses prepared me for this work.
What do you most fondly remember or what are your main takeaways from being a Rice English major?
I firmly believe that the best thing I did at Rice University was to immerse myself in creative writing opportunities, from my coursework to my time spent working on R2: The Rice Review. I’m currently writing my first book, and I know that my marketing copy and features writing is so much stronger for studying and writing fiction and poetry. When I was in Houston, I immersed myself in the literary community, attending the Boldface Writing Conference, interning with Bloomsday Literary, attending Inprint Readings (which I still do now that they’re online). These are the experiences that cemented my writing skill and stoked my passion for approaching writing as a social good, and something that can be wielded for the benefit of local communities. Like many folks in higher education, I struggled with the removal of English coursework from the “real world,” or the “world beyond the hedges.” I often grew frustrated when my studies felt too abstract or ungrounded in the realities around me. But creative writing connected all of those dots and taught me how to be a literary citizen of Houston and now Kansas City, where I work in local journalism. I’ve also started working with an abolitionist organization called Liberation Lit that allies with folks behind bars—the official mission statement is that we “work directly with incarcerated readers to build a world without cages. We send books of all kinds to individuals incarcerated in Missouri and Kansas. Our goals are to stoke the imagination, foster relationships, amplify voices, and build solidarity through literature.” Houston has a powerful radical literary community that transformed my relationships to books and reading and laid the foundation for what I hope to do with Liberation Lit!
What was your favorite English class at Rice and how has that influenced you as a writer?
Favorite class! I’m so glad y’all asked this because I could wax poetic about these classes forever. My favorite class is a tie between two creative writing courses, both taught by Dr. Amber Dermont: Fairy tales/sci-fi/fantasy workshop and her advanced fiction workshop. I wrote this in the dedication of my senior thesis, but Dr. Dermont revolutionized my relationship to the English language. I had always loved fantasy and fairy tales, but my writing was often written off as not worthy of “literary” status because of my interest in these forms. (And now there’s a rising popularity of speculative fiction in the literary fiction market.) In Dr. Dermont’s class, I learned how to, and was empowered to, modify and reinvent language—to use the transformative nature of the fantasy story and the fairytale to transfigure language, story, character, and to write about my own trans-figured experiences as a gender-nonconforming person.
What would you say is the strength of a training in the humanities and its application beyond the university in the “real world”?
I came into Rice as a double major with English and some sort of engineering—I don’t even remember what. Against the advice of everyone around me, I dropped engineering in my second week at school. I don’t regret it an ounce. It’s almost impossible to quantify the strength of training in humanities because it’s the strength of the humanities itself, which is often discounted in our STEM-oriented world and university, or treated as a supplement to a STEM education. Don’t get me wrong. It’s fantastic and essential to study engineering or mathematics or physics and so on—but it’s equally fantastic to study just English or just art history, etc. What can I say about humanities that we don’t already know? They allow you to understand humanity better. To understand your own emotions and experiences. As a humanities student, you are well-poised to do extraordinary inter-departmental work as there’s a lot of flexibility in your study. You’re never losing your creativity. There’s an extraordinary capacity for social change and activism from folks who understand and work within the humanities. But also, some of us are just happier in humanities. It brings us more joy. Some of us just want to have our noses in books. Isn’t that good enough? There are jobs for humanities students where you don’t have to settle. It’s not easy, and the path is not as clearly charted as it might be for other industries, but they’re there.
What advice would you give, if you could, to your undergraduate self?
Hey, undergrad Lily. You’re finding yourself stuck in all of these marketing-oriented internships rather than the editorial ones you wanted. It may feel crummy, but that experience will be essential for you in the literary world and help you in the hybrid position that you’ll get right out of school. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to pursue editorial work—it means that you’ll be an even better editor someday because in the literary world, editors need to have marketing and copywriting skills.
Also: Ignore all people who keep insisting that English, writing, story-telling, and everything of that nature isn’t enough for a job. Marketing skills have been a stepping stone to an editorial future—they are not, and definitely do not have to be, your final resting place. Pour yourself into the things you actually love and want to learn and you will build work opportunities and community around that.