Journalist Spotlight | Interview with Alexandra English, Features Editor at Are Media

Today, Medianet is excited to interview Alexandra, Features Editor for Are Media, discussing her role, career journey, writing advice, and thoughts on print media's revival.

Hi Alex! Firstly, congratulations on your new-ish role as Features Editor! 

Thank you!

Could you tell me a bit about your role and how you got here? 

My role is basically to curate the long reads in ELLE and Marie Claire. I work closely with Grace O’Neill, the editor of ELLE, and Georgie Abay, the editor of Marie Claire, to make sure the articles align with their vision for the rest of that issue of the magazine. Both magazines have intelligent reader bases who love a deep-dive into a topic that’s either trending, is breaking news or is thought-provoking in some other way. 

It’s my job to sift through the pitches freelance journalists send through or assign a writer who I think will do a brilliant job with an idea we’ve come up with in-house. We have a regular base of contributors, but are always looking for fresh voices.

How I got here: I’ve worked at both ELLE and Marie Claire in the past, on staff as a Sub-editor, and had been freelancing for them both when the Features Editor position came up earlier this year. I was in the right place at the right time.

What exactly is a feature article? 

A feature article is usually about 1500-2000 words about a particular topic. For ELLE, it could be a first-person essay. For Marie Claire, it’s more likely to be a longer news report which includes interviews with experts and people experiencing the issue first-hand.

And what are some of the stories/experiences/perspectives that you want to read more from? 

These are different for ELLE and Marie Claire because we have different readers. To put it really simply:

For ELLE, it’s about amplifying the profiles and voices of young creatives, first-person think-pieces, the zeitgeist, reporting on what’s coming next rather than what’s happening now.

For Marie Claire, it’s about what women are talking about with their friends (e.g. health, relationships, current affairs) in a more journalistic way (i.e. no first-person). We report on heavy topics (e.g. domestic violence), and always with a lens of trying to make change.

Before taking on this role, you’ve also worked as a Freelance Writer and Sub-editor. What prompted the shift back into working for ELLE and Marie Clarie? And how has your time as a Freelancer impacted your work/writing? 

I had a really great time freelancing. It gave me the opportunity to work with so many new people on different titles and in different offices, but I also had the freelancer panic where I said yes to absolutely every job and so never really had any downtime. 

I came onto the ELLE relaunch as a Freelance Copy Director and Features Editor, and in between issues, was freelancing as a Sub-editor in the Marie Claire office and writing articles for them on the side. I’ve always loved both magazines and working with the people on both teams (that’s the thing about the magazine industry, you’ll work with people more than once), so when the opportunity came up to leave freelancing and go back to full-time work with them, it was a very easy yes. 

Do you have any advice for writers who are pitching their work to different magazines? Have you received a memorable pitch recently and what would you say is the ratio between pitched v commissioned pieces for ELLE and Marie Claire? 

I could go on and on about this, having been on both sides of pitching. It can be brutal out there, to get an Editor’s eyes on your idea, and I know and feel that pain. There are a few things that I think make a massive difference:

Read the magazine you’re pitching too. It sounds so obvious but it’s one of the biggest reasons a pitch won’t get any further than my inbox. It’s always so clear when someone hasn’t read the magazine, you can’t fake that. And I don’t just mean making sure your pitches suit the publication (which is another must), but sometimes we’ll get pitches for stories that are in the current issue that’s on newsstands. In a way, that’s great because it shows that the writer knows what we want, but is ultimately a dead giveaway that they don’t read the magazine. 

If you haven’t had a response, follow up after a few days, but don’t be rude about it. Editor’s inboxes are overflowing, there’s no way around it. A gentle follow-up email is appreciated, but an aggressive (or worse, passive aggressive) email demanding a response is a sure-fire way to make sure you never get one.

Don’t pitch stories about fleeting TikTok trends to a print magazine. We work months and months in advance, and whatever trend is viral now will likely be over before I even see your email. It’s tricky to balance the zeitgeist with a print schedule, but with some clever thinking, it can be done.

Don’t write your pitch like a text. Bullet points are fine, but each one needs to be a full sentence. You’re not just pitching your idea, you’re also pitching your writing skills, so they should be written in the same style you’d write the article in.

We don’t have a particular ratio between pitched and commissioned pieces. It’s very much case-by-case each issue. Sometimes a writer will pitch an idea that doesn’t suit the magazine, but I can tell they’re talented, so I’ll keep them in mind for a commission.

There seems to be a revival in physical media lately. Do you think that this revival of print is more a trend or it’s here to stay? 

I do think (and hope) it’s here to stay. There’s a great sense of digital ennui lately, and people are turning to print as a way to see great content without also seeing how many notifications they have. You can’t have 50 tabs open in a magazine, your attention doesn’t get scattered across hundreds of posts and articles. We’ve curated it all for you, printed it on beautiful paper and put it in your lap. It’s a way of switching off that’s not completely mindless (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).

Could you tell us more about your writing practice/habits? How do you juggle this—particularly freelance writing—with your current media cycle? 

I spend a lot of time researching (to the point of procrastination) before I start writing. Usually, the intro will come to me while I’m in the shower, so I’m going to get those kids bath crayons that write on tiles, so I don’t forget my shower thoughts. A lot of writing gets done in my head before I sit down to get it out. Once I have the opening line, the rest (if I’m lucky) flows, and then I fill in the gaps and edit at the end.  

In terms of the current media cycle, we sometimes have the luxury of a long lead time, which means we can spend a lot of time thinking about a story. Other times, it’s something that needs to be written quickly, which is a good way to sharpen your writing skills.

And what are your thoughts on the growing ubiquity of AI within the media landscape?

I haven’t tried AI yet, except to write my partner a terrible poem! As a print-obsessive, I don’t yet understand AI enough to have a strong opinion, except that I think it could be used for the things humans don’t want to do (like admin, research) so we have more time for the things that are essentially human: art, humour, creativity, deep thinking, making meaning. In a practical sense, make sure to fact-check your work if AI is doing your research, but I wouldn’t encourage it for the actual writing part.

Finally, what has been the most memorable moment of your career thus far?

There was a period of time when I worked at ELLE and Harper’s BAZAAR before they were shut in 2020, and the travel perks were amazing. I got to go to Italy for four days, have a Fijian island all to myself, and visit New Zealand and Singapore, and then come back and write about it all. Dreamy.