Welcome to PitchFest!
We’ve invited editors from some of the top magazines and newspapers to meet you at HJ24’s PitchFest in New York City! Bring your best ideas to the AHCJ Freelance PitchFest and discuss your ideas one-on-one.
Attendees can reserve up to THREE appointments with the editors below. PitchFest will be in-person only.
You must be registered to attend HJ24 before you can reserve PitchFest appointments. Each attendee will receive an email on April 10 (or after they have completed HJ24 registration) with a private link to sign up.
Jump to: PitchFest Editors
Strategies for success
Remember
Five Rules for PitchFest
1. Show up. If you fail to show up for any of your appointments, you will not be allowed to sign up in advance for next year’s PitchFest. Additionally, be aware that the booked editor will have your name, potentially harming your reputation with that publication for years to come.
2. Show up on time. We run on time and we run like clockwork. If you are late, you forfeit your pitch. We also hate to waste the editor’s time, so if you’re late, and we see an empty seat, we will fill it with another writer.
3. Prepare carefully. We’ll post blurbs from editors describing what they want, so read those to customize your pitch to what each editor needs for his/her publication. For example, news editors won’t want to hear a pitch for a feature. Study the publication to make certain your pitch is a good fit.
4. Respect the time limit. When you hear the one-minute warning, wrap it up. When you hear time called, please get up, thank the editor and tell him or her that you will follow up with an email.
5. Understand the limits. Please recognize that attending PitchFest does not guarantee you a sale. It does guarantee you an opportunity to pitch face-to-face with editors who are extremely difficult to access, even by email.
PitchFest Editors
Here are the editors waiting to hear your pitches:
Jennifer Abbasi
JAMA Medical News | Freelance Market Guide
Jennifer Abbasi is a health and science journalist and news director at JAMA. Her work has appeared in consumer magazines including Discover, Fortune, Parenting, Popular Science, Scientific American, SELF, and Women’s Health. JAMA Medical News welcomes feature pitches on topics related to health, medical science, public health, health care, and the practice of medicine.
Betsy Agnvall
Elizabeth “Betsy” Agnvall is the Health and Healthy Living Editor at aarp.org. She has worked as editor of Staying Sharp, AARP’s award-winning brain health platform and as a health editor at the AARP Bulletin. She wrote for the Washington Post Health section for six years has deep subject matter expertise in health and health journalism.
Katie Berohn
Katie Berohn is the Beauty Editor at ELLE. Previously, she was the Beauty Editor at Who What Wear, and before that, she was the Beauty Assistant at Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day and Prevention magazines. She has her Master’s Degree at NYU’s Graduate Program of Magazine Journalism.
In addition, Katie has held editorial internships at Denver Life Magazine, Yoga Journal, and Cosmopolitan, a digital editorial internship at New York Magazine’s The Cut, a social good fellowship at Mashable, and has freelanced for HelloGiggles.
David Bronstein
McMahon Publishing | Pitch Guidelines
David Bronstein is VP, Editorial at McMahon Group, a company that publishes news magazines covering a wide range of specialties, including anesthesiology, general surgery, pain, oncology, gastroenterology and infectious diseases. David has more years of experience than he’d like to admit writing, reporting, editing and managing medical content for both print and the web. At McMahon, he oversees all publications but also handles day-to-day assigning and editing for Pharmacy Practice News, Specialty Pharmacy Continuum and Pharmacy Technology Report. His Pharmacy team has won multiple national and regional Azbee and Tabbie trade publishing awards.
David lives with his wife and spoiled dachshund mix in West Orange, N.J. When not finding ways to make vancomycin AUC levels sound exciting to readers, he can be found kayak fishing on lakes in New Jersey, the Adirondacks and the Berkshires.
Shraddha Chakradhar
Shraddha Chakradhar is the deputy news editor for diversity at Science, shaping coverage of issues at the intersection of science and race, gender, and inequity and also shaping coverage of reproductive health issues. She also oversees Science’s Diverse Voices internship program. She has previously worked at Nieman Journalism Lab, STAT and Nature Medicine. Shraddha serves on the boards of the nonprofit website The Open Notebook and the National Association for Science Writers (where she is also the Treasurer).
Sarah DiGiulio
Everyday Health | Freelance Market Guide
Sarah is a New York City-based writer and editor. At Everyday Health, she oversees coverage of emotional and mental health, fitness, and sleep. She has previously worked as a reporter at HuffPost and as an editor at Oncology Times. She has also written about health, science, and wellness for NBC News, Prevention, Health Magazine, Real Simple, and Men’s Fitness, among other publications.
Outside of her writing and editing work, Sarah likes to run, bike, cook, and keep up with her book clubs’ reading lists.
Barbara Feder Ostrov
Medscape | WebMD
Pitch Guidelines
Barbara Feder Ostrov, editorial director, Medscape/WebMD, has reported on medicine and health policy for more than 15 years. She covered the pandemic for CalMatters and before that reported on health care for KFF Health News. She covered the medical beat for the San Jose Mercury News for eight years and edited the website of the Center for Health Journalism at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.
Her work has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Ms. Magazine, Atlantic.com, Salon, PBS NewsHour, NPR, CNN.com and EverydayHealth.com. She has won awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists, Society for Women’s Health Research, California Newspaper Publishers Association and Florida Press Club. She is based in San Jose, California.
Josh Fischman
Scientific American | Freelance Market Guide
Josh Fischman is a senior editor at Scientific American magazine, leading coverage of medicine and of science policy from Washington DC. He cohosts the “Your Health Quickly” podcast. His work has been selected for the Best American Science Writing 2012 anthology, and he has won the Blakeslee Award for excellence in medical reporting and other writing awards. He has written cover stories for National Geographic, U.S. News & World Report, and features for Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
As an editor, Josh has been fortunate to work on many stories that have won top journalism prizes. Josh has been the editor-in-chief at Earth magazine and deputy editor-in-chief of Chemical & Engineering News, supervising worldwide coverage. He has directed technology and science coverage for The Chronicle of Higher Education, was a senior writer and editor at U.S News &World Report, deputy news editor at Science, and a senior editor at Discover.
Josh has been interviewed about science and medicine on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, BBC World Service, the Weather Channel, and he has been a master of ceremonies on stages at the USA Science & Engineering Festival and the Consumer Electronics Show. Josh is the author of a leading medical education guidebook, The U.S. News & World Report Ultimate Guide to Medical Schools (Sourcebooks, 2006).
Michael Fitzgerald
Harvard Public Health Magazine | Freelance Market Guide
Michael Fitzgerald is editor in chief of Harvard Public Health, a magazine that explores what works in public health, what doesn’t, and why. Previously, he was articles editor at the Boston Globe Magazine. He spent more than a decade freelancing for publications including Discover, The Economist, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, and The New York Times. He’s also been part of four journalism startups, one of which, ZDNet, is still going strong.
Among his awards and honors are a Nieman Journalism Fellowship at Harvard University and a Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in Science & Religion. A native of a small city in the Midwestern Rust Belt, he holds an AB in History from the University of Chicago. He lives outside Boston with his wife and their two sons.
Eric Fitzsimmons
Cancer Today | Freelance Market Guide
Eric Fitzsimmons is a writer and editor based in Philadelphia but originally from New Jersey. He currently serves as an editor at Cancer Today magazine, and has a background writing about health, government and culture. In addition to Cancer Today, Eric’s writings have been featured by Living Beyond Breast Cancer, JUMP: The Philly Music Project, and the academic e-journal Studies on the Irish-American Experience in New York and New Jersey. Previously, he worked as a reporter for Digital First Media in Northwest Philadelphia and Montgomery County.
Dianne Hartley
US Healthcare Journals | Pitch Guidelines
As the president and chief editor of US Healthcare Journals, Dianne Hartley leads a team dedicated to improving the health of our citizens by connecting and uniting health care leaders with news, information and analysis about their local industry. Journals are published bi-monthly in two states with some of the worst health outcomes: Louisiana and Arkansas. Dianne has been with USHJ since its inception and the launch of Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge in 2007, followed by Healthcare Journal of New Orleans and Healthcare Journal of Arkansas.
She attributes her background in cable and television in Houston, New York, and Baton Rouge for her deep understanding of the power of both local and national media. She is particularly grateful for the lessons learned at Discovery Channel and her time as a newspaper girl. Dianne is also a football widow and the president of the newly formed CTE Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of and, hopefully, stopping the long- and short-term effects of head trauma that players sustain from playing games. She holds a bachelor’s in journalism from Texas A&M.
Diana Hembree, M.S.
MindSite News | Freelance Market Guide
Diana Hembree, M.S., MindSite News Co-Founding Editor, is a journalist who has won more than two dozen national awards, including a first-place Investigative Reporters and Editors award, a Jesse Neal Award for Magazine Editing, a National Press Club Award for Consumer Reporting, a Folio Gold Award and a shared Polk Award.
She served as a senior editor at Time Inc. Health and its physician’s magazine, Hippocrates, for four years, and as a reporter and news editor at the Center for Investigative Reporting for more than 10 years, where she worked with many national publications and with CBS’s “60 Minutes”and PBS/Frontline, where she served as associate producer of Frontline’s “The Great American Bailout.”
She has written for Forbes Online, Columbia Journalism Review, Southern Exposure, the Washingon Post, the Center for Care Innovations, where she also works, and many other outlets.
Hembree will be listening to pitches alongside MindSite News Co-Founding Editor Rob Waters.
Brady Huggett
The Transmitter (formerly Spectrum) | Freelance Market Guide
Brady Huggett is the enterprise editor at The Transmitter, where he writes and edits features and long-form projects. He is also hosts the podcast Synaptic. Previously, he was an editor at Nature Biotechnology and the managing editor of BioWorld.
Christen A. Johnson
Cosmopolitan | Freelance Market Guide
Christen A. Johnson is the lifestyle editor at Cosmopolitan where she covers health and wellness, money, career, pets, home, food, travel and more for print and digital. She writes and edits everything from weed use during pregnancy to luxury candles. She also wrote Cosmo’s first-ever digital cover story. Before joining the magazine, Christen was a lifestyle features reporter at the Chicago Tribune, and several of her health and style stories made the paper’s front page.
Christen is a proud alum of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. When she isn’t digging through antique stores, Christen is likely drooling over home renos on HGTV, sharing her latest therapy revelation, redoing old workouts from her college basketball days, or trying to perfect her homemade buttermilk biscuit recipe. Christen currently resides in Harlem, but Atlanta, Georgia is home.
Tony Leys
KFF Health News | Pitch Guidelines
Tony Leys, Rural Editor/Correspondent for KFF Health News, is based in Des Moines, where he worked 33 years as a reporter and editor for The Des Moines Register. Tony was the Register’s lead health care reporter for more than 20 years and served four terms as a board member for the Association of Health Care Journalists. He is an alum of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT.
Brendan Maher
Nature | Pitch Guidelines | Freelance Market Guide
Brendan Maher is a news features editor with Nature, the international science journal, where he has filled in on several roles across the News & Opinions team for the past 15 years. He currently handles news features about research, researchers and the intersection of science and society, with emphases on biomedicine, basic biological research and social justice.
Claire Maldarelli
Inverse | Freelance Market Guide
Claire Maldarelli is the senior science editor at Inverse.
She enjoys covering all areas of science but has a particular interest in personal health, medicine, and exercise science.
Previously, Claire was the Science Editor at Popular Science Magazine and hosted the magazine’s science explainer podcast, Ask Us Anything, answering everything from why not everyone can touch their toes to what would happen if you fell into a black hole. Her work has also appeared in Scientific American, The New York Times, and Scholastic’s Science World and Super Science Magazines, among others.
She has a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology from the University of California, Davis and a master’s in science journalism from NYU.
Marty Munson
Men’s Health | Freelance Market Guide
Marty Munson is a long-time health and wellness journalist who’s currently the Health Director at Men’s Health. She has written and edited stories for outlets and audiences ranging from Triathlete to Real Simple, Marie Claire to AARP, and she’s translated hard science into actionable information for publications including O, the Oprah magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Prevention, Martha Stewart Living and many others.
She’s also a USA Triathlon-certified coach as well as a distance open-water swimmer and swim coach. She’s a specialist in helping triathletes and open-water beginners find success in the swim and love for the water.
Jennifer Rainey Marquez
GoodRX Health | Pitch Guidelines
Jennifer Rainey Marquez is the senior director of content strategy at GoodRx Health, the editorial arm of GoodRx, which empowers readers to take control of their health with accurate, unbiased information that is easy to access and understand.
Prior to joining GoodRx, she spent two decades as a magazine editor and writer, primarily covering health and wellness topics. She was previously the executive editor of Atlanta magazine, deputy editor of Parade magazine, and health editor at O: The Oprah Magazine and Women’s Health magazine.
Meredith Schwartz
CQ Researcher | Pitch Guidelines | Freelance Market Guide
Meredith is the managing editor of CQ Researcher, an online magazine that examines a single topic in depth each week. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of Library Journal. Meredith also writes fiction and is a freelance fiction editor.
Maiken Scott
WHYY’s The Pulse | Freelance Market Guide
Maiken Scott is the host and executive producer of WHYY’s The Pulse — a weekly, national health and science radio show and podcast that explores the people and places at the heart of health and science. The show airs on more than 120 public radio stations across the country and its podcast is presented by NPR. Before hosting the Pulse, Maiken covered mental health for WHYY News.
Megan Thielking
Well, New York Times | Freelance Market Guide
Megan Thielking is the news editor on the Well desk of the New York Times, where she edits stories on health, medicine and wellbeing. She was previously an editor and a reporter at STAT.
Linda Thrasybule
Everyday Health | Freelance Market Guide
Linda is a Senior Editor at Everyday Health, where she oversees coverage of digestive health, heart health, and cancer. She has more than 20 years of experience covering health, nutrition, lifestyle and wellness trends, and science. Her work has appeared in Reuters Health, LiveScience.com, NPR’s Shots blog, Yahoo News, and TheWeek.com. She has also written clinical topics and research briefs for a number of government agencies and nonprofit health organizations.
Cori Vanchieri
Cori has more than 25 years of experience as a writer, editor and project manager within the health and science field. She helped launch news sections at the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Annals of Internal Medicine and was senior medical editor at Cleveland Clinic Magazine. Before joining Science News, Cori was the story editor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s magazine, the HHMI Bulletin. She earned degrees from Cornell University and Stanford University.
Tracy Vence
Wirecutter, New York Times | Freelance Market Guide
Tracy Vence is an editor at New York Times Wirecutter, specializing in health, fitness, and personal care. She was previously an editor at The Scientist and GenomeWeb. She’s covered health and science for 15 years.
View Wirecutter’s general pitch guidelines.
Rachel Warren
MedPage | Freelance Market Guide
Rachel has been the SVP of Editorial at MedPage Today staff for six years. Prior to joining MedPage, she was a Senior Publisher of Science and Medical Journals at Oxford University Press where she oversaw a team responsible for acquisitions and development of a portfolio of medical journals. Prior to that, she was Group Editorial Director for several HCP-focused sites at UBM Medica. Rachel has an undergraduate degree from Connecticut College in Biochemistry and English, and did a brief stint at the NYU Science & Environmental Health journalism program in the midst of a career in medical book, journal, and website publishing.
Rob Waters
MindSite News | Freelance Market Guide
Rob Waters is a co-founding editor of MindSite News and is an award-winning health and mental health journalist. He previously worked as a staff reporter or editor at Bloomberg News, Time Inc. Health and the Psychotherapy Networker. He was a contributing writer to Health Affairs and his articles have also appeared in the Washington Post, Kaiser Health News, STAT, the Atlantic.com, Mother Jones and many other outlets.
He was a 2005 fellow with the Carter Center for Mental Health Journalism. His reporting has focused on mental health, public health and science. In 2021, his mental health reporting was honored by the Association of Health Care Journalists, the National Institute for Health Care Management, and the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California.
Waters will be listening to pitches alongside MindSite News Co-Founding Editor Diana Hembree.
Pamela Weintraub
Aeon+Psyche | Pitch Guidelines
Pamela Weintraub is the senior editor at Aeon+Psyche and founding co-editor of OpenMind Magazine, as well as occasional editor of print titles in health and psychology for a360 Media.
She was previously editor-in-chief of OMNI, executive editor of Discover, and consulting editor (features) at Psychology Today. Weintraub is also author or co-author of 16 books and have widely published stories on psychology and health across national media. She recently won a Pulitzer Center grant for OpenMind.
