S7 E72: Editor Insights Pt.1

Get the show’s transcript

“NV: Even when I was in advertising and I was trying to be a freelance writer, and launch my writing career, and get into travel, like editorial jobs, I used to feel like I was wasting my time, like, I'm not a real writer, I'm not a real editor, I'm not a real journalist, because I have a nine to five job at an advertising firm and I felt crappy about it. It took me such a long time to realize that it's because of that job, it's because of the regular paycheck, and the benefits, and the health insurance that I got from that job that I was even able to become a freelance writer and pursue these passions. That's something that like, I feel like, especially young people who listen to this need to realize that you make your life so much harder when you just throw yourself into whatever it is you're passionate about and expect it to pay your bills and get you health insurance and cover the rent. It may not work that way. That's okay. It's okay to have a nine to five or to bartend or to do whatever it takes to support yourself while you're building this passion. That's what it means to hustle.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:01:09] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I'm your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we've always wanted to tell; with the right support, encouragement and structure. I'm on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you're ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence and publish your travel stories. You're in the right place. Let's go.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:46] YD: Welcome back, everyone to season seven of our podcast. I hope you rested well, traveled well, and are now ready to get back into the wonderful world of storytelling in travel media. I for one have a pretty astonishing travel schedule this fall. I have just gone through an assignment trip in Black Forest, Germany. Stay tuned for an episode dedicated to this assignment entirely that's coming up, a scouting shoot in Kazakhstan where I was born, which I'm pretty excited about, a speaking gig at a conference in Poland, and an assignment in Austria. 

If you're listening to this episode live in the beginning of October, I'm sending you hugs from the Austrian Alps, but this is not the end of my journey, after Austria, I'm going to Jordan to do a shoot for Getty. Then Barcelona for another assignment and possibly an assignment in the UAE before I returned to Chicago this November, but back to our podcast. Every season, I think long and hard about what interesting, unique episodes we can bring to our listeners. Shout out to my amazing podcast producer and friend Noelia Sanchez, who is always there brainstorming with me during our chats. I'm so excited to bring you a mini-series this season. We're calling editor insights in this two-part series that we're kicking off today, we're going to hear from all the amazing travel editors who have come to our podcast over the last six seasons and share their wisdom with us. 

Working with editors is an integral part of being a travel photographer and writer and it's the part I love so much from pitching and developing angles to submitting drafts and incorporating their feedback, which always or most of the time makes the story better. I love every part of interacting with editors. Editors, they have a lot to say. They work with writers and photographers on a daily basis and they have observed so many lessons that they're going to share with us in this two-part mini-series. In today's episode we're going to hear from three veterans in the travel media industry. 

Ashlea Halpern, editor at large for AFAR, contributing editor to Conde Nast Traveler, and the New York Times, and the founding editor of The Urbanist, a pop-up travel blog from New York Magazine. Nikki Vargas, commissioning editor at Fodor’s Travel, the Founding Editor of Unearth Women Magazine, and a travel writer, and author who has been featured in VICE, Food & Wine and more publications. Last but not least, Ashley Halligan, the Founder of Pilgrim Magazine, who has also been published in places like Backpacker and Alaska Magazine. 

These three women have an incredible wealth of experience in travel media, and in today's episode, you're going to hear their advice for beginners, what they look for in the pitch, why they think rejection is not the end of the world and what to do about it, and the most important quality of a person they want to work with. We also discuss storytelling, finding your niche, demanding better pay, and what it means to hustle, as a freelancer. It is such an incredible conversation. I hope you enjoy hearing from these three editors, as much as I do. If anything that you'll hear today resonates particularly well, be sure to go and check out full episodes with each of these editors where they go even deeper into their path to where they are today. 

We will be linking the links to those episodes in the show notes as well. In the second part of this two-part editor insights miniseries out next time, you're going to hear from Sarah Khan, Editor in Chief for Conde Nast Traveler, Middle East, and Lauren Keith, assigning editor at Lonely Planet. All right, let's get started. 

[00:05:40] ASHLEA: Something that I tell anyone who is inspiring freelancer, or already out there in the trenches, there's just so much information you're not getting when you get a rejection. That's because most editors at this point in particular, are just spread too thin to really break down all the reasons that idea didn't work for a publication. It very rarely is that your idea is terrible. There are terrible ideas out there, but so often, I mean, they could already have something similar in a lineup there. That could be a weird quirk of the editor in chief or an executive editor, or they just don't like X type of stories. 

It could be. I think one thing that I've seen so many great story ideas get killed over is the art and photo team doesn't like it. That more than ever now in this Instagram era, where it's visuals first, they wield a lot of control and a lot of power. If they don't believe in the visual potential of your story, it's dead in the water at a lot of publications. That as someone who has been both writer and editor is insanely frustrating. At the same time, I also get it, because I have to think visually too, for a lot of the social media work I do and how are these stories going to translate to a digital audience versus a print audience. 

There's just so many issues at play. People, you have to be really persistent, especially now that freelance budgets have been iced in so many places, especially now that staffs are whittled down to skeletal teams, before we had people already doing two or three people's jobs. Now they might be doing four or five. It's tough, but if you know in your heart that your idea is good, it's a matter of finding the right outlet, the right publication, and one that will pay you fairly for it. 

[00:07:27] YD: I love that you say that. Coming from an editor, it's incredible to hear that idea of being paid fairly. If you've been in the industry for a while all these horror stories of really low pays for really high amount of work. It's definitely tough. I just love so much that you brought that up as well. What you've said about this idea of thinking visually for this age of incessant social media that we're in, that actually brings me to my second question that I had about this, which was you went through that incredible turmoil, right? When the magazine industry first transitioned from mostly print to this digital space in which it's a wild west of publishing. Are there some things that you've learned in that transition? 

[00:08:22] ASHLEA: Yeah. It's tough. I think a lot of people still glorify print, and I get that. It feels like you're creating something that you can hold in your hands that can live on a shelf. I still do quite a bit of print work. I love writing for digital. I love how fast it is. How you don't have to come up with an idea, like how do you right now, pitch a magazine that is coming out in January, February 2021? We don't even know what is going to happen next week in this crazy country, in this crazy world, let alone know what the environment is going to be six months from now.

I really love the immediacy of digital. I'm not a news writer. I'm not one of those news hounds, it's like firing off six stories a day in response to every little thing that happens, but I do love that I can report a story now and have it live within two or three weeks. I would say that if you're looking for mentors and you're looking for that line editing and feedback you don't get that as much in digital. Very often I file pieces and other than maybe getting trimmed down or heads index changes. It publishes online the way that I filed it, whereas print stories go through so much more massaging, so many more editors weighing in on it, photo and art teams telling you know, we need this photo to be three quarter a page, so what was assigned that 700 words suddenly shrinks to 250. 

They're just totally different skill sets and I think a lot of magazines have done a good job of breaking down the wall between web and print, but the teams still aren’t thoroughly integrated, you still have dedicated print people, dedicated web people, and unfortunately, the rates haven't followed. I think that's a huge problem, you still have writers earning two, sometimes $3, five if they're a really big name, a word for print magazines, Then when people being told oh, we pay three cents a word. It's like, no, because the amount of work is the same, and the quality of the writers is often the same. 

That to me is infuriating and something you have to buck in. It goes back again to this idea of, if you don't demand your worth, no one's going to give it to you. I totally get, especially new writers feeling like they just need to get clips, and they just want to get their name out there, so they write for next to nothing. It does undercut the value of the entire business and everything we do. When people get accustomed to thinking they get something for free, or get it for cheap. We're dismantling our own business and livelihood. Charge your worth! 

[00:10:57] YD: I love that. Ashlea, I love so much that you brought this up, because this is a huge issue for so many people, especially for women, this is a hard issue, right, to be asking your worth and to believe that you have intrinsic value that you can ask to be paid accordingly for. This was a big thing that I have been working on for the past four years, because when I was starting out, I was definitely one of those people that no matter what I will take it if it's three cents a word like you said, and it's an evolution, it's a journey, I think to start believing that you are worth being paid more. I think we all have to demand better pay, but at the same time, it's hard to do that when your mindset and your own internal beliefs are not there yet to be able to ask for that. 

I've met a lot of women who are struggling with that, and who don't even have that internal belief that they're able to ask for more. Now, when I'm working with editors, and when I'm pitching stories before, what I would use to do is when they would come back to me with their rates, I would just always take it, no matter what it was. Now when the editor sends you, “Okay, we'll take your story, here's the budget, here's what we can do.” I always ask them, “Oh, here's my usual rate. Can you meet that?” There's a way to do that, that's polite and professional, but it's taken me four years to get to this point. I guess what I'm trying to say that it's a journey, it's an evolution. If somebody's not able to ask for their worth right away, there's some things that they need to work through first in order to get there. 

[00:12:49] ASHLEA: Absolutely. I don't mean, it's not like I was writing $2 word stories out of college, not at all. I used to write for pitch magazine and punk planet. I'm not even sure I ever got paid. I probably did, but it would be $5 for a feature story or something. It definitely comes with time, it comes with experience, it comes with getting your name out, it comes with building relationships with editors. They know your work, they know the quality of your reporting, they know you're going to turn it in on time, they know it'll be clean, that’ll be factually correct. Your whole goal as a freelancer is to make your editors life easier. I think not enough people just that's worth paying for it. It really is. 

[00:13:33] YD: Yes.

[00:13:33] ASHLEA: My dad always said to me, he's like, “You can get it done well or you can get it done cheap, but you can't get both.” I say a version of that to places and I do walk away from projects that I really want to do, because I don't think that they're fairly compensated. That's a hard thing to do when we're in a depression and a pandemic, but you have to know your own value and stand by it. I find that for the most part, people respond to that. They're like, “Oh, she must be good, then.” 

[00:14:04] YD: Yes. 

[00:14:05] ASHLEA: Very oftentimes, they will come back with a counteroffer. It may not be exactly what you want, but it'll definitely better be better than what it was. 

[00:14:13] YD: Yes, exactly. That's what's been happening to me as well, lately, which is so exciting. I just want to just comment real quick on what you said about making an editor's life easier. I love that you said that, because the people who are listening and who have taken my courses, we'll be laughing right now, because this is exactly what I say in all of my courses. 

Guys, you have to understand how tricky the editors job is and how overwhelmed and swamped, they are most of the time right now. So if there is a way you can make their job easier, this is in a way, this is your assignment, too, right? Yes, you have to bring them great stories that fit with their magazine and with the vision and all of that, but if you can make their job easier even just a little bit, then that's what they're looking for and they'll be so grateful to you for that, because it is a hard job. 

[00:15:06] ASHLEA: Yeah. It's the little things, too. You're already deep in the weeds on your story. If you can come up with some heads and decks, just throw five head ideas and write a great deck. When if it's a web story, and they're going to need to hyperlink, 12 different things in your story, put in the hyperlinks, don't make them go hunting for that stuff, make it as seamless as possible and make yourself indispensable. When I think of Yulia, I'm like, “Okay, this is not going to take up half a day of having to rewrite someone. I just know it'll be good, it'll be clean, it'll be factually correct, that's what you want an editor to think about when they hear your name. 

[00:15:41] YD: Absolutely. Absolutely. Just for clarification, heads and decks are…

[00:15:47] ASHLEA: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yes, I can explain that. A head is a headline on a story and the deck is usually the bit of copy that runs underneath it. In some magazines they don't have a lot of display copy, which is the main copy read on the page, before you get to the body copy, which really jumps into a story. It might be really short. It could be a one sentence deck. Some places do longer decks could be two or three and sometimes even a deep paragraph to set up the story ahead. 

[00:16:16] YD: Awesome. Awesome. So do you have any advice for women who are just starting out on this path now in this crazy year, and have aspirations to break into the travel industry or the journalism industry at large? Any advice you have besides don't get in?

[00:16:40] ASHLEA: Look, I think no one should be fooled to think that this is a super stable or lucrative career, because it's not for most people. I also do a lot of commercial content work. Some of that is far better paid than traditional editorial. That's just two hats that most people I know in this industry wear now. I do think being open minded to all the different ways that your skill set can be used is important. Look, if you want to be a hard news reporter for the New York Times, then chase that dream, but if you want to be freelance, it's a little harder to do strictly editorial and make any real lucrative money. 

I think if you're just starting out, find a niche. That's the most important thing. If you can be even more specific than just travel, oh, I want to do travel writing. What is it about travel that you really love? Are you obsessed with planes? Are you obsessed with points and mileage collecting? Are you obsessed with cruising? Are you obsessed with environmental and eco-friendly places? Like figure out what – are you obsessed with pets, traveling with pets? If you can develop a niche and become known for that, I think that's one of the easiest ways to break in now. 

You start by – you have to have some published work that an editor can look at, you can send them the best idea in the world, they're going to want to see your style of writing, they're going to want to get a sense for your voice. Even if that means launching your own platform, or setting up a medium account, or sub stack, or whatever it is you want to do, have those what we call clips. They used to be actual printed clips, but now digital's completely fine and frankly, easier. No one wants to download your 99 billion gigabyte attachments.

Develop a niche. Who cares if people say no, don't ever not pitch someplace, because you're afraid they're going to say no. What if they say no? Okay, on to the next thing, just keep for every – I would say for every 20 pitches I put out in the world maybe two get assigned, so what? I don't take it personally. it's just how it goes. You have to be really – if anything, it can be exhausting, the idea generation. It’s just part of the game that we're all playing, but a lot of times the pitches you come up with, you can repurpose somewhere else. If you believe in something, never let it just die on the vine. Keep searching for that right home. It's out there, you just have to find it. 

[00:19:17] YD: Oh, Ashley. I love that so much, so much. This is also the advice that I give in the courses that I teach and all of the work that we're doing exactly what you're saying, right? Keep pitching, keep finding home for your ideas. Keep believing in what you have to say, because at the end of the day, you are the maker of your own destiny and your own career and your own dream. As long as you keep pushing forward and keep being consistent and persistent with this work. It's going to happen. 

[00:19:51] ASHLEA: Yeah. I've also told – some publications I work for that will go unnamed, but I'm sure you can guess Yulia, are more difficult sometimes for freelancers to break into. I really respond to and root for writers that don't give up, because I will try to find a way to get them in. If none of their ideas are sticking for whatever stupid internal machinations that they don't need to know about, I will have an idea that we generate in house that I want to assign out, I'm going to think of that writer, because I'm going to be like their dog and they're hungry, they want this work, and I want to work with them. I do think that your persistence, without being too annoying like do know your limits, can pay off for writers.

[00:20:39] YD:  Yes, I love that. By the way, guys, Ashlea is incredible to work with. I've had the honor of working with her and just loved every minute of it. To add to your point, if you're persistent, and you keep reaching out, and keep sending your ideas in, editors notice that and like you said, they're going to keep you in mind for appropriate moments and appropriate assignments. So that's super important. 

[00:21:07] NV: I wanted to write about real stories that mattered and people's experiences and things that I felt like needed a platform. That's really what became the basis for Unearth Woman is that, that's I guess, maturing in my writing and that transition from the diary entry type of blog posts about just all focused on my experience and my view, to then turning the spotlight outward and being like, you know what, I'm much more interested now in hearing what these local people have to say, or what the political situation is in Colombia, or what the presidential election is in France. These are all stories that are important. That's where I am today with my writing is it's evolved into this place of much more altruistic writing and giving platform and voice to other people. 

[00:22:02] YD: No, definitely. I love that you bring this up, because this is a discussion that I often find myself in, particularly in places clubhouse, which I've been speaking and engaging a lot in that platform. People often ask me, what is that difference between a travel blogger and a travel journalist? I think you just put it so nicely, right? It's that focus on your personal experience somewhere and your personal perspective, versus uncovering stories of people and places and political situations that exist somewhere. So for me, even though the lines, I feel like the lines are quite blurry in some of this, because journalists can be content creators and influencers and bloggers and vice versa, but by and large, that's the way I approach it, as well. It's great that you brought this up, too. 

[00:22:53] NV: Yeah. I think that exactly to your point, the lines are definitely blurring. I think right now, where we're at as a society is we're at this point where it's almost unacceptable now to move around the world and only look at things through your own eyes. We're getting to this point, as a society and as a culture that it's so important to spotlight the other experience, spotlight people that might not ever have a spotlight to give platform to marginalized communities is to lift the voices of people that are discriminated against, and people who have blogs, who have social media following, who have these platforms, it's becoming more and more of a responsibility to do that. 

I think to your point, those lines continue to blur, whereas I now see travel bloggers today that they do basically exactly what a travel journalist or travel writer does. They're doing reporting, they're interviewing people on the road, they're telling other people's stories, and they rarely talk about themselves and their experiences. To that point, I see travel bloggers that are just like the ones that I saw 10 years ago, which is, it's just a personal journey and personal diary of their own evolution in context of travel. I think both are completely fine. Both are appropriate. I just find in my own personal career that I've outgrown that style of writing. 

Unearth Woman is rooted in the idea that travelers are uniquely positioned to support and help women wherever they go. The reason being is that as a traveler, as someone with a amount of influence, whether it's just telling friends and family what you did on your trip, or whether it's going on Instagram and telling your followers, you have an ability to both influence how people visit a destination and also influence how people spend money at a destination. 

If you're using that influence to point people in the direction of women run businesses to point people in the direction of female run organizations to shine light on local women that are doing cool things, that makes a difference. That's the concept of Unearth Woman is that it's really just about uplifting women, shining light on women run organizations, and businesses and showing travelers how to support women when they travel. 

[00:25:18] YD: I love it. I love that so much. For our listeners, if you haven't yet, but I'm sure you've heard of the magazine, but definitely go check it out. We're going to link to all the resources in the show notes, as well. Would you just said, really resonated with me that it's shining a spotlight, not only on all of these incredible stars, women CEOs, and such, but also on women who are much more accessible to us who are doing incredible things, right? I think that in our own way, all of us women are doing incredible things every day and trying to operate in a man's world and pave our own paths. Sometimes that's even more inspiring when you see women like you doing things that. 

Perhaps I'm never going to interview her, because she's not as accessible to most of us listening, right? I will interview amazing women who are just like me, who are doing incredible things. I think sometimes that's even more powerful, because then you're like, I can really do this. I see this in my path. I love that. 

[00:26:29] NV: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's showing that change can happen in both big and small ways. I think so often, and I get like this, too. It can be very easy to feel like, what's the point? What's the point of doing this? Who's reading it? Who cares? What's the point of pushing this idea up the hill when something like in a far exists, or travel and leisure exists and they're doing a good job at it, so why does this need to exist? I think the answer is what you just said the point being is that you can make change in big and small ways. Even if it's not a global change like someone who's running Facebook, it can still matter that change. Even if it's just a small community change and inspiring friends and family to support women, or lifting up the voice of a woman in another country who has a great story to tell, or shining light on an organization that people don't notice support. That's still positive change that you're creating. I think that's, it's worth pursuing that. 

[00:27:38] YD: You know, thinking about on Unearth Women, today and the platform and how it's evolved, what kinds of stories are you most excited about to publish and to create for the magazine? Are you open to working with new writers that you haven't worked with before to reach out to you as well? 

[00:27:58] NV: Yeah, definitely. I mean, where things are now with Unearth Woman, we're, it's a pretty exciting time, because we have a book coming out, during our meteoric rise, when everything was happening at once, one of the things to happen was that we got a book deal with Penguin Random House. That's super exciting. This is something that we've been working on now for almost two years. It's coming out in the spring. Basically, this book is, it's a collaborative effort that focuses on the entire thing that the entire platform of veterans woman in the sense that it focuses on how to support women on your travels, how to travel as a woman today, but it takes into consideration some of the things that guidebooks don't necessarily address. 

Also it talks about supporting women. It talks about building your own feminist city guide. How to find women owned businesses. How to support women led organizations. The book really brings together all of these voices in the travel industry. Of course, as we know, there's no way to write an all-encompassing how to travel as a woman today, type of book without bringing in voices of other people. I have one experience. I can only speak to my experience, but we have women that talk about traveling as part of the LGBTQIA community. We have women talking about traveling as a woman of color. 

I'm really excited about this book. I am very curious to see where this takes us because obviously, this book coming out from Penguin Random House, it allows us to reach a whole new audience that we may not be reaching right now. I'm eager to see what doors that opens. So because we have this book coming out, my hope, my goal, my wish is to try to release a new issue of Unearth Woman later this year to coincide with the release of the book, the idea being that if we're going to have this book coming out, and people are going to now know about Unearth Woman that when they come to investigate and see what we're about that we'll have a new issue, and we'll have some exciting new content, and that there will be things there that are new and fresh, for them to enjoy, and hopefully fall in love with the brand. 

In a very long winded way, the answer to your question is, yes, we are currently accepting freelance submissions for the Digital site. Also, as we look to release a new issue, at some point during the year, we're going to make an announcement for opening submissions for the next print issue of the magazine, and all of that is really in an effort to boost up the Unearth Woman brand, the magazine and the website in preparation for the release of the book. 

[00:30:51] YD: Amazing. That's so wonderful to hear. For our listeners, we're going to link to your submission guidelines, too. So take a look at those, they are pretty amazing and very detailed. You'll get a better idea of what types of stories Nikki and her team are looking for as well. How do you balance all of these different things that you're working on? More specifically, I hear this sometimes that there is this train of thought that you have to do one thing and do it well. I know that a lot of us in this industry are actually drawn to more than one creative project, because I work with publications. I have a travel company. So I'm excited when I meet other people who have lots of different things going on. My question is, what would you say to someone who feels drawn to be creating in the world in different ways, but sometimes feels like that maybe is looked badly upon? Maybe you need to focus on just one thing to be successful. What would you say to them? 

[00:31:52] NV: I think you just have to do what you're passionate about. I mean, at the end of the day, after everything that went down with Unearth Woman, after everything that we've all been living through, and many are still living through in terms of the pandemic and quarantine. I just want to do what makes me excited. What I feel gets me jumping out of bed in the morning. The fact is that I don't really balance it, to be honest. Whoever tells you there balancing everything, I mean, is lying, because there are weeks where I don't touch on Unearth Women, I'm not going to lie to you. There are weeks where I, that entire week, I am working on other projects, I'm doing stuff for the Doc, I'm doing a freelance article, whatever it is, and right now trying to pitch a second book, so I can hopefully get that in the can. 

There are weeks where I'm just doing everything, but Unearth Woman. Then there are weeks where all I'm doing is Unearth Woman, and I'm not doing any of the other stuff. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with just going back to basics in terms of going back to what makes me happy and what makes me passionate. Again, this is coming out of this Unearth Woman experience, the magazine, everything. What I really realized is that I just want to go back to passion. Unearth Woman started as a passion project. It took off and flew into outer space, because of passion, because I believed it so much and I chased it out of this world that is shot out into the stratosphere and it became what it is and that's so exciting to me. I want to see where these other things end up. 

Right now I'm really passionate about this documentary. I want to see where that takes me. I told you that we have the book coming out. I want to ride the momentum of this book coming out to see if I could get another book deal for another book idea that I've had. So from the outside looking in, it might seem a little scattered. It might seem a little like, Jesus, how do you sleep at night? I guess the short answer to your question is, I sleep fine, because I don't worry about balancing. I just, whatever the day requires, if I wake up today, and today I woke up to a bunch of emails about the docs. So today I'm focusing on the documentary. Tomorrow I'll wake up and it might be a different day. Tomorrow, I might wake up and just work on Unearth Woman. The day after I might focus on a freelance article I'm working on for Cosmopolitan right now. There is no balance. I'm just doing what needs to be done on that day. 

[00:34:33] YD: Yes. I love that. I love that. I think also it's perhaps about releasing expectations that something needs to progress at a certain pace, because I think that's part of that feeling pressure I'm not working on Unearth Women this week. Every week I have to be working on something a little bit so progressive. Maybe if you release that expectation and just to your point, focus on the passion and let things unfold as they are, which is, again, I think a more afeminine, intuitive approach to doing things which I just love so much than some of the pressures can be released. I love that. That’s wonderful.

[00:35:12] NV: Exactly. I think the other thing too, and this is a big lesson that I would love like listeners to take away is that when you put all of your eggs in one basket, you really live and die by that basket. With Unearth Women, when it was the be all end all, when it was the only thing I was working on, the only thing that was occupying my brain space. It felt like life or death. It really did, because I was demanding it to pay the bills, I was demanding it to meet the moment and when you put that such intense pressure on a project, particularly one that's young and an infant and it's blossoming, I mean, it's like, if you can picture a flower, a new flower popping out of the dirt, and then you just dump a giant bucket of water on it. I mean, you've completely drown it. 

It's like, you have to let these things grow at their own pace. That's what I did with Unearth Woman, I jumped a giant bathtub of water on top of a fledgling flower, and it drowned. It's not dead. It's sprouting up again, but the lesson there being that I find, at least for me, when I don't have all my eggs in one basket, when I have other things that I'm working on, that I'm excited about, the pressure is not on one thing to succeed. It's not on one thing to pay the bills, it's not on one thing to be my career. Right now, I have Unearth Woman, that's a great, and that's exciting, and I love working on it, but I also have my freelance writing. I love that too. I have money from that. I have stories that I'm excited on for that. I have this documentary. That's exciting. I'm excited to see where it takes me.

I don't feel like it spreads me thin. If anything, I feel like it keeps me mentally sound and stable, because there are other there's other irons on the fire here, with the book idea that I have for the second book deal that doesn't happen, okay, well, then I have these other things going on. If Unearth Woman hits a quiet streak and nothing's going on over there, well, then I have the doc. If the doc for whatever reason, I don't know, if something happens with the doc. Then I have these other things. I find it, it keeps me sane to know that I don't have to live or die by one idea. 

[00:37:39] YD: I love that. I love that so much. That's the approach that I take with my work as well. I can totally relate to that. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us. 

[00:37:50] NV: You'll see too, I mean, look, I've both worked with and interviewed so many people in the travel space and the one thing that I always am impressed by, because I've actually asked this exact question to other women that I've interviewed. “How do you do at all? How do you balance it all?” At the end of the day, everyone is hustling. Everyone is diversifying their projects and revenue streams. That was the biggest thing. When I used to interview these travel bloggers in my early 20s and I'd be like, how, how do you make a living off of this? I would look for some magical answer. There wasn't one. They diversified their revenue stream. They weren't just travel blogging. They were travel blogging and doing an E-commerce Store and freelance writing, and waitressing on the side that they just didn't share that on social media. There's so much hustling and diversification of revenue streams here. It makes sense. It makes sense, because there are so many creative people in the world today. It's really, really hard to carve out a living off of just one creative endeavor. 

[00:38:58] YD: Yes. What I always say too, is that do whatever it takes whatever you need to do to keep building the vision that you have for your own creative life. There is no shame in supporting yourself with all these different things. That doesn't make you less of a creator. It doesn't make you any less valid in this field if you have all these different things going on. I'm really glad that you brought this up. 

[00:39:20] NV: Thank you for saying that. I have just to say, thank you for what you just said, because when I was in my 20s and I used to feel so guilty and crappy about myself, because I was doing other work beyond my passion. Like even when I was in advertising and I was trying to be a freelance writer and launch my writing career and get into travel editorial jobs. I used to feel like I was wasting my time, like I'm not a real writer. I'm not a real editor. I'm not a real journalist, because I have a nine to five job at an advertising firm. I felt crappy about it. It took me such a long time to realize that, it's because of that job, it's because of the regular paycheck and the benefits and the health insurance that I got from that job that I was even able to become a freelance writer and pursue these passions. 

That's something that like, I feel like, especially young people who listen to this need to realize that you make your life so much harder, when you just throw yourself into whatever it is you're passionate about, and expect it to pay your bills and get you health insurance and cover the rent. It may not work that way. That's okay. It's okay to have a nine to five or to bartend, or to do whatever it takes to support yourself while you're building this passion. That's what it means to hustle. 

[00:40:50] YD: Yes. Oh, my God. Nikki, I think this is like, we need to cut this and put this into every single episode. We have to put this everywhere, so people hear this all the time, that's such an important message –

[00:41:02] NV: I know. I feel like, you should just cut this part and make it the trailer, just like, I need it to be – I need it as my own ringtone, because I forget this all the time. This is what it means to hustle. 

[00:41:14] YD: I know from experience that when you first start in the space, it can be so intimidating, because again maybe you don't have the traditional background, or maybe you don't see a lot of people around you doing what you want to be doing. Beyond saying just start, which is what we say, right? How do you overcome that fear? What has helped you to make a move and to get going, when you're first starting? When you don't have that big portfolio? When you don't know anybody in the industry? What would you say to these people?

[00:41:46] NS: Just talking to other people, networking, listening and having conversations like what we're having right now. That really helps, because I think that when you're starting out, the people that are at the top of the industry, they feel like, they feel like gods. They feel they're so far away and out of reach, and that their careers are so enviable, that it just feels like to draw a line from point A to point B from where you are to where they are. It feels daunting, and it feels impossible and that's really disheartening. But what I find is when you have these kinds of conversations like the ones we're having now, you realize that one, these are just regular people. These are regular women that a lot of them started out exactly where you're starting out or maybe even with less.

I think it's easy to look at these people and think, oh they got to where they got because they have connections, or they have money, or they were in the right place at the right time. That is true for a lot of people. That is very true, but there are also a lot of people that that's not the case. There are people that people – I've been approached about on Unearth woman, and I've had people assume that I have a trust fund. That I must have started Unearth Woman, because I have a trust fund and I thought what the hell, I'm going to use it. When they find out that I started Unearth Woman while unemployed with no savings. They're like, “Oh, that is different.” 

It's like, when you talk to people and you hear their origin story, and you hear about where they got to where they are. I think sometimes it makes it feel more accessible. If it feels more accessible than it feels like you can do it, too. That's really the takeaway from every one of these conversations from every woman's travel conference that I've both attended and spoken at. The takeaway is always this, if I can do this, you can do it. That's just what it comes down to. There's nothing that separates the people who are listening to this and me. I don't come from money. I'm an immigrant from Columbia. I didn't go to an Ivy League school. I went to Indiana University. I didn't do some impressive internships at Vogue or anything. I didn't even climb the ladder of editorial the way that other people do. 

I stumbled around New York going from job to job, balancing freelance writing while waitressing tables until I got into advertising. What I did was I just hustled and I networked and I talked to people that had careers that I wanted. I talked to people that would take the time to mentor me and help me, and that is what it took. So yeah, for the people listening to this podcast there's never going to be a invitation to start. There's never going to be a clear cut path to walk. You just do it and if you feel scared to do it, talk to other women who've done it already. You'll see that there was nothing special about them. It just was drive. That's all it was. It was driving passion. 

[00:45:09] AH: I think some of my favorite stories that we've published with Pilgrim and even some that are in queue that hadn't been brought fully to life yet are people that I have found a lot of them through Instagram, actually. I read a beautiful caption, that's maybe a paragraph and I'm like, “Okay, let's create an entire story with this.” I message them and they’re like, we've never written anything ever, we're not writers, we're this or that. I'm like, you don't have to be a writer. I think that that's the most fundamental part of storytelling for me. It's that humanity connection. It's enlivening people to tell their stories, and it enhances that connection among people. 

[00:45:46] YD: Yes. It resonates with me so much. That's totally what I believe in as well. I think for me, what I always talk about is that telling stories is so natural for us as humans. It's such an innate quality. We do it in different ways, perhaps, right? Somebody is better suited to do that with words, some written words, spoken words, photography, perhaps, but to tell stories this is so natural to us. So what I always say is that, if you feel some of that, if you're unsure, if you have what it takes to tell the story that you want to tell, well, just know that you do have what it takes. It's innate to us as humans so that helps me when I sometimes have those moments of doubt, I think about that. It's a human nature. I'm a human to most days. 

[00:46:34] AH: It's necessary for humanity. I think particularly in the last couple of decades, where we've become so much more digitized, and with that comes the abbreviation of communication. We don't speak in prose  so much anymore, everything is edited. I don't want to say superficial, but we lose sometimes that depth of explanation and communication and connectivity, because I think we exist in this ecosystem that is purely digital in many ways, and fast paced we're all in a hurry, and everyone is busy. I think when we can divert our attention back to storytelling, and having true human connection like making eye contact, and having a real conversation that's what I want to reinvigorate again, because I think so much writing on the internet, too, is it doesn't have the narrative quality. 

Of course, I understand that there's a time and place for lists and for just get to the point kind of writing, but I think it's that human based memoir focused, just the rawness of telling a story. It doesn't have to be perfect grammar. It doesn't have to have zero mistakes. I've been reading a lot the last couple of months and what I've really been paying attention to are the nuances of different author voices, and how much I appreciate the imperfections or when I consider to be an imperfection as a writer where I'm scanning something and I'm like, oh, I would have done this differently, or is there a comma missing or it's not about perfection, though. It's about rawness. I think with the digital world, we get so focused on editing and making things perfect and polished. We take that human quality out by virtue of doing so, that I think I really to leave the raw, rigid edges of things intact, because that's what gives a voice its individuality and that's what we want to preserve. 

[00:48:20] YD: Yeah. That's so beautiful. I think it shows up in a lot of the stories they tell in the magazine, for sure. How do you go about doing that, right? You said you had a roster of people that you knew, storytellers or people who you thought would have great stories that don't necessarily consider themselves storytellers. How do you go about creating something out of nothing? 

[00:48:42] AH: Well, I would say nothing truly begins with nothing. Like the substance, even if it's not material is often so pronounced that I'm so fixated on that. That's my focal point. If I see the substance, there's already so much to work with, just from that. For example one of our biggest stories with Pilgrim and one that we published at our launch was the Felicity Buckwinder Series. The author of that series, Jessie, she is an incredible photographer. She is a storyteller in that sense in the visual way. She's explored, at the time, she had explored some kinds of writing, but she had never really published like a long form story. Really, that story was centered on her mother's voice. 

We were taking the journal entries of her mother who had passed away when Jessie was a teenager. So we had just this wealth of imagery of journal entries. Then we had Jessie’s voice and then we had Haley's voice who was the editor of that piece. How do we merge these three things together to create a cohesive, beautiful story arc? It took a lot of work and finagling for that one in particular, because there was so much material, but originally when I was courting Jessie, and I was trying to encourage her like, we really want to publish this. The story is there. I think it was maybe a little overwhelming, because how do you tell such a big story. When you don't necessarily consider yourself a writer and a given period of time, but it was all there, and we knew it was there, it was just a matter of shaping it and finessing it, and organizing. 

A lot of back and forth, I think, I don't know, I think for me, it's really natural to focus on that substance. Then the writing for me is natural as well. I can help someone formulate a piece from even just one line. There was a writer whose story we have not published yet. In fact, actually, she's not a professional writer, but she's mushroom forager. She's obsessed with mushrooms. She's a traveler, and she does the freelance patchwork lifestyle, she does a lot of different things, but not necessarily writing, but she published a caption that was about reading a book in a bookstore in a foreign country, just skimming or skimming it. 

The way that she wrote just these three sentences about that experience, I immediately messaged her, and I'm like, “Let's turn this into a bigger story.” It's become a work in progress, where we're back and forth. I think it's just a matter of identifying that little, that thread, that thread that can be woven into a much more beautiful, bigger tapestry. When you see that in someone, it inspires them, and it encourages them. It also causes a lot of reflection, self-reflection, where they're like, “Wow. I didn't necessarily realize that this was a story in itself.” 

Actually a story that we'll be publishing in the next couple of weeks similar thing we found of a husband and wife or a partner, a couple. They're traveling photographers. They live on the road. They had this amazing story about this old man that they found painting a landscape on the side of the road, like an old tattered, rusty camper, or campervan, whatever it was. They wrote one paragraph. So we worked with him to turn that one paragraph into an entire story that is so touching, and so compelling. It's just a micro moment of the human experience where you're on the road, and you share this, it seems like a light conversation. 

The old man clearly inspired them, because they wrote a short caption about him, but I don't think that they saw the breadth of that piece and how it could grow to become something bigger. I think that's what me and Rachel, our current editor with Pilgrim do with people as we see that fragment or that micro moment that could just be carved into something larger. We work with people to bring that to life. 

[00:52:13] YD: God, I love that. So many questions I already have for you. First of all, I think this will be really interesting for our listeners to hear is, how do you know if the story is there or not? Because as our listeners and people in our community in our circle membership, and the class, we often talk about putting pitches together, approaching magazines and is there a story in here? Sometimes, it's really difficult to say, if there is a story in here not, because sounds like you have a really great eye or nose or whatever for it. I mean –

[00:52:47] AH: Honestly, I wish that I had some compelling wisdom to share on that. I think so much of it for me, I feel like is intuition. It might also be my narrative imagination. I'm really good at creating entire narratives in my head, which can be a blessing and a curse, but it's like, I see something that's so beautiful and just one line, for example, or you watch a moment unfold. I don't know, like I could create a novel out of nothing. I think that that's just an intuition based thing for me. I will say I did a few years ago, writing workshop in Zanzibar with a couple of journalists that I think are incredible women. The focus of this writing workshop was duality of the human experience. How we can be two opposite things at a single time, or feel completely two different emotions on the spectrum of feeling at a given time.

One of the writing exercises that we did was, we did a free writing exercise, they would give us a prompt, and we didn't have much time. It was like a very loose, maybe we would end up with 200 words or something. Well, then what we would do and so of course, that's a framework, right? That's a blueprint. What we would do later is we would go back, and we would add within that beginning to end that we already wrote. We would expand, expand, expand, expand, expand. So we would go through what we had already written, which seems a very lean, maybe even meaningless piece of prose that we had put together. Then we would create this beautiful, full complete story out of it. By complete there's not a defined word count that makes something complete. 

I think a story is complete when it's well told, and it completes itself. I don't think that there's a word count that can achieve that, but it was a really interesting exercise for me. It's something that I've continued to practice since that writing workshop where as a writer, I think, sometimes you're driving down the road, and all of a sudden, it's something comes to your head, and you have to get it out. So I'll pull over. I'll put something into a note, just keywords. A lot of times my writing is a list. The number of lists that I have from my travels that are just completely random keywords that I know will prompt a larger memory when I go back to revisit that. I use that as the same framework where I go in and it's like, okay, I can expand on all of these keywords. 

Then you have a complete piece of work. 

I think, maybe the beauty of observation is what make something complete, because if you have that micro moment that you can fixate on, if you can draw recollections of all the things that surrounded that from a sensory perspective, from an awareness perspective. I think presence is what makes a story complete, because if you're completely disconnected from a moment, you're not going to have all the elements that make it complete. I think maybe that's what it is, maybe it's the art of being present, and having the ability to recollect details, because you were so present in a period of time to recognize that there's so much more complexity to a moment. It's not everything is three dimensional, four dimensional, five dimensional.

If we pay attention to the complexity of, yeah, the complexity and the layers of our experiences, I think the stories are endless. So many authors that I love, their material, but they weren't successful till they were dead. I think that that's a really important thing to remember that we do have this misconception that you have to create constantly all day, every day you write or you paint or whatever your medium is, and you need to be successful at it to be able to call yourself something. I think impostor syndrome is also a big part of our culture. I've struggled with it at different times. It's funny, I don't consider myself a photographer, but I do often shoot my own photos. I love photography. I have a great camera, but I would never call myself a photographer. Sometimes people will introduce me, Ashley's a writer and a photographer, and I correct them. 

I've had other people that I've looked up to in the industry, who will say to me, but you've sold photos, and you've been hired to cover events, or to do street photography of a place. I'm like, “Well, yeah, but I wouldn't feel comfortable shooting a wedding.” That's always what I say, that's how I caveat it. I wouldn't want to be the person that's responsible for having perfect wedding photos. I've been corrected, “Well, so you're not a wedding photographer, you're a humanity photographer.” It's funny how we get these narratives in our minds that we are not something, because we think that we have to achieve X, Y, and Z, or we have to produce so much material, or we have to be given a particular accolade. I just don't think that that's true. 

I think those self-limiting beliefs are really, they can be very devastating. I think you don't have to be published to call yourself a writer. You don't have to have an exhibit to call yourself a photographer. I mean, the beauty of being an artist of any kind is that we're constantly evolving our art. I look back at some of my early work that I was paid for, and it makes me cringe sometimes, and I'm just like, I can't believe I wrote that that way, or why am I – so ellipses happy. I used to use a lot of ellipses. It's just, it's funny. We are our own harshest critics. Anyone that tells you otherwise, who's within the field, I think that that is motivated by ego. I think ego is it can be the biggest blocker that we have for anything. 

I think as long as you commit to your art and some capacity, you are that thing. You can be many things. You don't you don't have to be just a writer to be a writer. I consider myself lots of different things. I consider my – there's dreams I have that are not connected to what I'm doing right now and today, that I'm going to eventually be that thing. I want to be a children's book author. I really want to shoot album covers, completely random dream I have. I'm not those things yet, but I'll become those things, because I want those things. 

[00:58:14] YD: What would you say to someone who feels like they have a story inside, or stories inside, but for one reason or another that we already discussed like imposter syndrome, all those other things that tell us we're not a writer, we're not a photographer. What would you tell to them? What would you say to that person to try to encourage them to go out and reach out to Pilgrim Magazine, to other magazines, write your stories on your blog? What would you say to them? 

[00:58:46] AH: I would say, and I do say, I think it's important to one, have an ally. I think having an ally is really, really powerful. I think there were so many times that I was stifled by my own self-doubt that I just wasn't sure how to move forward. It wasn't always so much that I didn't believe in my work, or that I didn't have a powerful or compelling story to tell, but maybe I just didn't know the next steps. I wasn't experienced enough to know what to do next. So much of my success has been based on or maybe not based on, it's been enlivened by people who believed in me, but in order to have people believe in you, you have to be willing to share part of yourself, you have to be willing to share a little bit of vulnerability, a little glimpse into what you're working on. 

Not feel burdensome by doing that. I think that was one thing that stifled me as well, is that I didn't want to burden people with questions, or with needing support, or asking someone to read my work. Of course, we you always want to be respectful of someone's time and have reasonable expectations, but I know that, because of how much other people invested in me and their willingness to help me perfect a piece, or introduce me to editors, or introduce me to different people that would be just powerful additions to my story. I'm willing to do that for other people. If I see that promise in someone, and I mean, I think that evidenced by the fact that I launched a publication in which we've got seasoned writers that have written for New York Times, and National Geographic, but we also have people who've never written anything beyond, maybe a caption. That's what we want. 

I think, feel empowered to reach out to someone and just say, “Hey, I love your work. I've been inspired because of your work. I was wondering if you would be willing to read something or point me in the right direction.” It's asking for help is, I think, necessary, especially in a world in which sometimes our success is defined by who we know. That's an unfortunate thing, but there's so many people who are willing to help. I would say, also like, I started contemporary Pilgrim, because I didn't want to sell some of my most prized stories to other publications, but because I started that it gave me a platform. I made no money from it, it was an art thing for me. This was a production of art. It wasn't monetized. I wasn't earning a living, but it was a place where I had a guaranteed home for my voice. 

I would encourage other people to do the same. My work there wasn't perfect, but it was a place that I could capture and gather all the material from my journeys and from my connections with humans and from there, it grew, and it blossomed. Now it's a community that I don't even have time to write for myself a lot of the times, but I have lots of other writers. I would encourage people to, if you don't have an outlet, create one. It doesn't have to be perfect. So much of my old writing, I've repurposed. I've gone back and my voice has matured, my writing style has changed some. I've gone back and that work has almost become material to build from like it's kind of on the archives, and I can add to it over time, or change it or, or pull things from it. I think as long as you're writing, it's not a wasted exercise, or creating whatever you're creating. It's not a wasted exercise. 

[01:01:58] YD: Yeah. Beautiful advice. I concur to every single word that you said. I think it's really important to have allies, to have support. Yeah, putting your work out there and having a home for it. That doesn't depend on the whims and ebbs and flows of other people and their platform. I think that's a great suggestion, as well.

[OUTRO]

[01:02:22] YD: Thank you so much for listening to our show today. I hope you enjoyed this first part of our Editor Insights miniseries. If so, I want to ask you to please take a minute right now to support our show. You can do that by leaving us a rating or review on the Apple podcast app, it takes just literally a couple of seconds to do that or by sharing this episode with your friends, colleagues, or posting about it on social media. It really, really helps us get discovered by more listeners just like you that would wind our show helpful. It means so much to me. I read every single review we get and I take them very seriously, because I want to create a great show for you. 

If you've been inspired by something you heard today, or in any other episode of our show, please take just literally less than a minute right now to support it by leaving us your rating or review. That is one of the best ways you can help us out. If anything that you heard today resonated with you particularly well, be sure to go and check out full episodes with each of these editors where they go even deeper into their path to where they are today. 

You can find the links to those episodes in the show notes. In the second part of this Editor Insights miniseries out next time, you're going to hear from Sarah Khan, Editor in Chief for Conde Nast Traveller Middle East and Lauren Keith, assigning editor at Lonely Planet. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next time.

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