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Want to Write for Skepchick?

Despite the fact that this isn’t one of those super fancy websites that actually pays its writers in anything besides love, introductions to your favorite living thinkers, and occasional drinks, I often hear from people who want to write for Skepchick. That’s awesome! If you are one of those people, this is maybe your chance! 

You see, there are two women who are very enthusiastic and eager to start writing, and I’ve been dragging my feet about adding them to the site. They are somewhat familiar to you: one is Donna Mugavero, aka Ms. Information, aka George Hrab’s right-hand woman. The other is Jacqueline Hargis, the chemist who wrote up her experience as a woman in a male-dominated science. They both add some things that I think will improve the site greatly, and I’m really looking forward to getting them on board.

And yet! There is still something we are missing, and so I’m publicly asking if one more person would like in. Here’s are the non-negotiable basics of what we’re looking for:

  • You have to know how to write concisely.
  • You have to have a sense of humor about yourself and your topic.
  • You have to be able to get a lot of email, both from fellow writers and from readers sending tips and comments.
  • You have to be ready for a few assholes to comment on your stuff (but you will always have a support network of Skepchick writers).
In addition, we’re looking for someone who can offer us a new perspective. Like:
  • A person of color: though we do have a few non-white writers (not including Esceptica), I feel that we are still overwhelmingly white and American.
  • A person who strongly identifies as LGBTEtc: I know that’s a huge spectrum, and we do have a few writers who fall into that spectrum. But for the most part, our current crew is overwhelmingly straight and cis-gendered.
  • A person who is disabled: again, some of the writers have varying levels of ability (I seriously don’t even know how to phrase that correctly, I apologize), but we are overwhelmingly able-bodied.
  • Maybe something else that we’re missing and you have it but we don’t know it yet.

The reason I list these is not to fill some sort of governmental blog oversight quota, but to get a writer who can approach our usual topics (skepticism, science, feminism, secularism) from a perspective that is currently missing – not just missing from this site, but from the greater skeptical/secular/atheist community as a whole.

Like I mention above, there is no pay for this gig. What this can do for you, though, is give you, and your favorite issues, a voice. Are you a black female atheist who wishes more people were reading your blog or recognizing your fellow black female atheists? Link away! Are you a transgender woman who wants to discuss feminism and the science of gender? Go for it. A quadriplegic theoretical physicist who wants to talk dark matter and wheelchair accessibility of university lecture halls? For the last time, Professor Hawking, the answer is “no” until you clean up your language.

And yeah, we’ll even consider your application if you’re a guy!

So, interested? Did I mention there’s no pay? STILL interested? OK. Send a relatively brief email to skepchick [at] skepchick.org with “Help wanted” somewhere in your subject line. Be sure that the email includes your real name, your interests and background, and links to any writing you’ve done.

If you don’t think you fit what we’re looking for but you think you know of someone who might, please send them the link to this post, even if they don’t currently read Skepchick.

Thanks!

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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63 Comments

  1. “Maybe something else that we’re missing and you have it but we don’t know it yet.”

    How about someone whose age doesn’t start with a 2 or 3?

    1. We do have a good number of writers who fit that description, but if there were someone who specialized in senior issues, I can see how that could be very interesting!

      1. Anyone who says I represent “senior issues” for Skepchick will get slapped.
        I’m still in denial, even though I keep getting mail from AARP.

      2. Hm, you all come across as twenty-something or *just* recently graduated from those ranks.

        To my eye, anyway.

        I’d love to see more coverage of issues like this:

        Skeptical daughter and son-in-law have kids. Yay, grandbabies! Son-in-law’s parents start lobbying to get the kid churched-up. Rut-roh.

  2. You need an MRA guy for balance… and I think that probably covers you on the (socially? mentally?) disabled part as well. :)

    Or, more seriously how about someone who doesn’t have a college degree and isn’t plugged into the more formal aspects of skepticism?

    1. Oh god I think I just vomited a little in my mouth. Thanks for that! (About the MRA thing, not the college degree part.)

      The odd thing is that I have only a vague idea of who on the team has a college degree and who doesn’t. What do you mean by “plugged into the more formal aspects of skepticism?” I don’t think we have anyone at all who is well-versed enough to write about philosophical skepticism, for instance, so I would assume we’d need the opposite . . .

      1. I’m not going to claim to have completed my philosophical education as of yet, but from what I have studied I’m not sure that philosophical skepticism is exactly something useful in the realm of modern skeptical activism. Descartes meditations are an exercise in philosophical skepticism and, lacking his ability to bring god into the matter, there is little to bring one out of the skeptically induced solipsism of the mental exercise.

    2. I am definitely a nerd. When I saw MRA, I definitely thought of the Mutant Registration Act from Marvel comics several minutes before Men’s Rights Advocate dawned on me.

  3. Any chance my straight, white, middle class, perfectly healthy wife could count as a “person of color” because she dyes her hair red? I so want to be able to tell people I’m married to a SkepChick!

      1. Sorry. We’re pretty mundane people so she dyes her hair auburn. When we met 20 years ago, her hair was practically copper and had quite a “wow” factor.

  4. Like M. Night Shymalan’s The Last Airbender, you need more Asian women characters ;) … No, wait. That’s not fair. Comparing anything to Shymalan’s The Last Airbender is totally not fair.

  5. How ’bout you just appoint me official grammar-inspector and I’ll refrain from posting the errors publicly:

    “pays it’s writers”

    I do have the unique perspective of being me, but I don’t think I’d bring a noticably fresh note to skepchick. Unless I posted in Norwegian.

  6. My avatar mentioned he might be interested but I’d rather he didn’t because it really creeps me out when we have disagreements.

  7. It occurs to me that, if we include “pathetically gullible” as a disability, we could end up with Oprah Winfrey as a blogger. I hear she’s got some time free now and, according to the Daily Mail, she’s gay.

  8. Hey, could you mention to Professor Hawking that we’d be happy to have him on FreethoughtBlogs? And he can be as profane as he wants to be? Thanks.

    Also, we’d like to poach from your collection of applicants — we could use more women/lgbt/people of color, too.

    1. Oh, that’s a great idea! I’m getting a flood of seriously awesome applicants. When we make a decision, I’ll let a bunch of others know they should resubmit to FtB.

    2. @pzmyers
      It’s not his vulgarity that’s the problem, it’s that he hates cucumbers and won’t shut up about it.
      As we know the Skepchicks love cucumbers (perhaps a bit too much) and won’t stand for anti-sativus language.
      .
      Support your local pickle.

  9. Yeah, I’d love to see more:
    – Black Women
    – Women from conservative Indian or East/South/Central Asian Families
    – Women born in Muslim states or Muslim families
    – Lgbt women
    – Women from families who had it truly hard growing up (unlike most of us middle-class, privileged peeps here)
    – Gay men

    I’m serious too. Not trying to diss the current roster, but the community I think would be enriched by people who have come from very different backgrounds than us.

  10. I may not be any of the above mentioned requests, but I’m a college student that is working her way into a Speech Pathology masters program and learning about the brain. I also just came out as an Atheist and I’m working with groups to get the word out that there are skeptics/freethinkers/atheists in Reno, Nevada (my home town).

  11. Very excited to hear the MsInformation is joining the crew. I love her tweets.

    How about a guest blogger policy? This way if someone only has a couple of ideas they can post and be on their way. Also you wouldn’t have to take as big a chance on them. Also you could ask for the material up front so submissions could be judged for merit.

    1. I believe that was the case for the Reader Rants feature from a year or two ago. I wondered what had happened to those? They seemed to dwindle off after a while.

  12. *chuckles*
    Well, I can’t do colour, but I can do disabled, older, LGBT and foreign.

    Trouble is, the thought of being described as a chick makes me break out in a cold sweat. But I’ll be curious to see who you get.

  13. I would *LOVE* to see more about disability and skepticism here. I’d also love to see more skepticism in disability, but that’s another topic (or actually it isn’t)…

        1. For what it’s worth, Natalie, I reckon you are a great writer with plenty of insight and would be an awesome Skepchick so please apply!

        1. FROM YOU ALRIGHT? I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU!

          (actually I don’t even know why the Brian-is-Mexican joke is even still funny to me. Except that it makes you draw me tacos.)

      1. Hooray for Senor Spokespeople!

        As for myself, I would fail to meet the very first criterion unless I spent so many millennia whittling down each voluminous post to the minimum number of words required to express the full intent of my meaning in an abbreviated but adequately comprehensible format such that my full intent could be divined from remaining portion thereof, that I would never get around to posting anything.

        Then again, I don’t meet any of the other criteria either.

  14. I got a bottle of teal dye sitting at home just waiting for me to scope out my new job before making its appearance.

  15. Any interest in the Atheist MOM perspective? We have a local atheist/agnostic parenting group full of moms who would love to contribute.

  16. Application sent. I’m only in undergraduate school but I have the determination of… some really determined person. Augh… I’m SUCH a failure.

      1. Noooo! The last thing that horrible pun needs is exposure and its own domain name! You’ll doom us all!

  17. Dash it all. I’d love to apply, but I don’t have anything to offer writing-wise and available online but posts on forums, and I’m not very long winded with those.

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