Why Writing For The Atlantic Is Easier Than You Think I expected there to be some sort of rigorous process--a waiting period? a physical? some paperwork?--befo

Why Writing For The Atlantic Is Easier Than You Think I expected there to be some sort of rigorous process--a waiting period? a physical? some paperwork?--before I'd be allowed to publish an essay to hundreds of thousands of readers. But here's what happened instead: On a whim, I called a friend of mine who's a columnist for his local alt-weekly and set up an appointment for a $79, 45-minute lesson. Two weeks later I picked a mildly unusual experience of mine and gave a brief, rushed overview of it, remaining about as deep as a kiddie pool throughout. Thanks to my friend, I knew the secret to writing modern middlebrow pop-culture essays -- just draw some arbitrary connection between your topic and another topic that seems, at first, to be totally unrelated. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before my deadline, and I never really found an interesting connection. But it's hard to complain when you're playing in the clouds.