Thirteen Ways of Pitching to The Toast -The Toast

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Home: The Toast

Important background reading. Also, this.

1.

Hello, my name is Cleo and I am in hopes that you are having a good day? I am seeing your article about women apologizing for not knowing how to pitch but pitching anyway and possibly for existing? Because I have followed you from The Hairpin to The Toast and The Twitter and The Tumblr? I too am sorry for not knowing, and for existing, and for ending all the sentences with a question mark? oh God my grammars, words are dribbling out of my brain somebody help me

2.

This is an important email to you. It will be surprising for you to receive this proposal from me since you do not know me personally. I would like to insinuate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you. I will introduce myself I am Cleolinda Jones a banker banking in a bank in Vanuatu. In 2013, the subject matter: I have a portfolio of 7.14 million $United States ideas, which I wish to liquidate.

3.

Mallory says we are never wasting her time, we are never bothering her! Mallory says that to her we are perfect! Technically that was said on a picture IN the text, not BY the text, and pictures are tricksy, Preciousss. But to include an image in the text is to signal that the meaning conveyed by the image is now part of the text, and–Tricksy! Wicked! LIIIIESSSSS. Mallory says we are worth hearing from! Mallory is our friend! She doesn’t even know you, Precious! NOBODY LIKES YOU.

4.

HOT XXX EMAIL PITCHES – MALLORY AND NICOLE ONLY – READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

5.

Please find enclosed my apologies for not knowing whether to address y’all as “Mallory and Nicole,” or “Ms. Ortberg and Ms. Cliffe,” or “Ms. Cliffe and Ms. Ortberg,” or “The Ladies of Toast,” or perhaps “The Toastesses” (no, that is terrible) (forget I said it) (oh God, leave me under this desk to die) and whether the word y’all is acceptable in a professional context.

6.

“My Eggs and Menstrual Blood”

Eggs
all-ready I have,
have lost,
broken like his
big-city vampire
sucking soul

–shit. SHIT.

7.

LADY LAZARUS: REANIMATOR

A sort of walking miracle, my gait
a shambles, a shriek of flesh,
Do I terrify?–

Sere-clothed, bare-boned, I feel
like hell.
I am only fifty

years dead.
The grave cave ate my
BRAAAAINNNNNSSSSS

8.

Please find enclosed “Bipolar: A Memoir for Two Voices.”

9.

Shall I draft my email now? Do I dare to send a pitch?
I shall wear mismatched pajamas, and seek my niche.
I have heard the editors singing, witch to pocket witch.

I do not think that they will accept my pitch.

10.

Please find enclosed a list of Names to Summon the Garage Band Deep Inside Your Soul, including but not limited to “The Foxgloves,” “Joan Jett’s Leather Jacket,” “Broken Pony,” “Tyger Tyger,” “SUBTWEET,” “Generic Sexy,” and “Trixie Wicked.”

11.

She rode over The Toast
In a chrome browser.
Once, a fear pierced her,
In that she mistook
A moment’s finger-slip
For a sent email.

I was of two minds
Like a pitch
In which there are apologies.

12.

[all of this as the body of an email: a body of trembling, kitten-eyed]

13.

Your message has been discarded. Undo discard?

Cleo recaps when she is least expected. Like a drifter, she was born to walk alone, on Livejournal, out of pure cussedness.

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