About The American Prospect

NOTICE: The next deadline for applications for the writing fellowship is May 1, 2008 (postmarked).

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The Program | The Magazine | The Application | The FAQ

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The Program

The American Prospect's Writing Fellows Program offers young journalists the opportunity to spend two full years at the magazine in Washington, D.C., actively developing, practicing, and honing their journalistic skills. Each Fellow will write between three and four full-length feature articles. Fellows will also regularly write shorter, online pieces and blog daily for TAPPED.

The Fellows are expected and encouraged to write for other publications, build relationships with editors and reporters, and establish rapport with contacts at think tanks and in academia. The goal is to ensure that, once the fellowship is completed, Fellows will have developed the relationships, track record, and credibility (and clips!) to launch themselves as respected young journalists. Past Prospect Writing Fellows have gone on to work and write for The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, Mother Jones, Newsweek, The Boston Globe and many other publications.

Fellows are required to make a one-year commitment. After that year, the Prospect and the Fellow will evaluate and determine whether to renew for a second year. Fellows receive a modest salary and health and dental benefits.

The Magazine

The American Prospect was founded in 1990 as an authoritative magazine of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, enriched democracy and effective progressive politics. Our 22-person team, augmented by many freelance contributors and friends, produces 10 printed magazines per year, a daily Web site and an award-winning group blog. Through these media, we spread the new ideas and critical analyses necessary to support an informed public discourse and effective democracy.

The Application

Applicants are asked to submit the following:

A 10-15 page critique of a recent issue of The American Prospect. Your critique should address style, clarity, readability, and layout as well as more substantive questions of content.

Two written recommendations.

Three to four writing samples. These can include newspaper and magazine clips, academic papers, blog posts, and unpublished pieces -- anything that demonstrates exceptional writing and analytical ability.

Three or four story ideas for The American Prospect.

Your resume.

Your college and/or graduate school transcript. (This is not to check grades, but to get a sense of your interests.)

The deadline for the 2008-2009 Fellowship is May 1 (postmarked).

All applications should be sent to:
Emily Parsons
Writing Fellows Program
The American Prospect
2000 L Street NW, Suite 717
Washington, DC 20036

Please contact Emily Parsons with any questions at eparsons@prospect.org.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the American Prospect Writing Fellowship

1. The application deadline refers to post-marked, not received. Please have your applications postmarked by the due date; don't worry if we don't receive them exactly on the due date. However, if you are sending in your application at the last minute, we strongly encourage that you use FedEx or Priority Mail. If you are an applicant from abroad and are sending in your application at the last minute, we very strongly encourage you to use some sort of express service.

2. Please do not fax your applications. Faxed applications are hard to read and easy to lose.

3. However, you may have your recommendations faxed or emailed if necessary. Sometimes recommendation-writers prefer to fax their recommendations in. Since we appreciate the delicacy of recommendation-requesting and -writing, you probably don't want to tell them they have to mail it in. So it is okay if they fax them. But we prefer written, signed and sealed recommendations whenever possible.

4. It is okay for recommendations to arrive separately from the rest of your applications. This is normal, especially if your recommendation-writers are sending us your recommendations separately. It is more convenient for us to get it all at once, but not required. However, all recommendations -- and all other parts of your application--must be sent in on time, which means postmarked or faxed in by the due date.

5. The critique is the most important part of your application. It is the way that we, the editors, evaluate your analytical ability, intellectual sophistication and individual interests. Do not give the critique short shrift. Poor or too-brief critiques paired with a brilliant and witty cover letter and good article ideas are rarely the best applications.

6. However, the critique is not a graduate thesis. Extreme length is no more a virtue than extreme brevity. We ask for 10-15 pages because, in our experience, the best level of detail and analysis come in critiques that are 10-15 pages long.

7. Also, the critique is not a summary of the articles. What we want to know is how effective you think the articles are and why.

8. Moreover, the critique does not have to address every single detail of every single article of an issue. As with length, try and strike a happy medium. Some people write good critiques by focusing on six or seven articles. Some good critiques focus on a few articles from each section -- one or two pieces each from Devil in the Details, the columns, the features and the currents section.

9. You do not have to critique the absolute latest issue. Any recent issue will do. Recent means sometime within the last six issues.

10. Use the online edition if necessary: Sometimes applicants are unable to find a copy of the magazine. If you cannot obtain a print copy of The Prospect, select a recent (see definition above) issue at our website. Note in your application that you are critiquing the online edition.

11. Do not sweat your transcript. We ask for it more to see what kinds of courses you've taken -- i.e., what you intellectual interests are -- than to check your grades. But please do send us one. If you are applying from graduate school, we would like to see both.

12. The article ideas are important. They are not an afterthought. They are an important way for us to gauge what your journalistic interests are and what you might be interested in writing during your fellowship. The ideas can be anywhere from a paragraph or two to a page each in length.

13. The term "writing samples" should be taken broadly. We want writing that demonstrates that you are capable of writing for a prominent national political magazine. This can include anything from outstanding class papers to newspaper and magazine clips to research reports written for think tanks or advocacy groups.

14. However, do not send in published or unpublished letters-to-the-editor that you have written to other magazines or newspapers. We don't consider these to be writing samples.

15. We do not demand that every applicant have a great deal of journalism experience. Years of summer internships at newspapers and magazines are not required, although they are certainly not a negative. We are looking for intellectual, politics and policy-oriented people with strong writing and analytical abilities.