She’s the Aussie version of Andy Sachs, but probably a whole lot sassier, smarter and savvy. With a CV to put any aspiring mag-hag to shame, Rachel Hills has worked for every major Australian publication and has currently gone AWOL conquering ole’ Blitey. Earlier in the year I had a chat to the Australian journalist, blogger, Phd student and self-confessed inappropriate woman about the highs and lows of freelancing, jumping across the pond and her soon to be released book.

Hey Rachel! So why the move to to London?

My boyfriend is living over there. It took us until maybe about April to figure out that he had moved. Originally he was supposed to only go for a few weeks, but his work kept him there. So when we figured it out we pulled the plans into action and I’m heading over there very shortly.

You’re currently doing a Phd at UNSW at the moment aren’t you?

I’m not finishing any time soon because they take forever to do! But I’ll be finishing it up when I get over there. Not immediately, but perhaps over the next two years.

Tell me about your dissertation!

I’m researching young people, late teens and 20-somethings, and maybe a bit older, and sex and identity. [I’m] Basically looking at this idea that our generation are always having sex. It’s called hypersexualisation of college students. The media is hyping up what people are doing romantically. So I came to the conclusion, that seems to be supported by my research so far which is fortunate, that what I was hearing about people my age and sex wasn’t really being reflected by the reality of people’s experiences. Status is somehow found in how much sex you’re getting. I think there’s a mythology about the perfect sex lives that everybody has.

When did you decide you wanted to be a journalist?

Probably. I always wrote as a child, and when I was little I would make zines. When I was in year 5 I got my class to make a newspaper which was very, very crappy. My poor mum had to typeset for me. I don’t know if I’d do that for my children. And when I was a teenager in high school I set up a website, and realised I was really passionate about writing and not really anything else. But I didn’t really think seriously about pursuing journalism until about year 12. Although what I wanted to do then was probably a little bit different to what I want to do now.

What did you want to do then?

I was really into music, and I was a musician myself. So back then, I was really interested in entertainment journalism. It’s weird how everything all comes together though. I used to want to be the editor of Cosmopolitan. It’s a goal I’ve since discarded, but it’s kind of strange, because now I write for Cleo and I’m going to be in Cosmopolitan next week. I recall when I was 16 also chatting to a friend’s mother and saying it was my dream to rant about popular culture. And whilst my intellect has improved, it still is my dream to write about things I’m interested in.

When I say it was my goal as 19 to be editor of Cosmopolitan, I was writing for student publications. I wouldn’t say I had a goal, and then I discarded it, then I came back to it, it’d be more that it evolved over time. When I was 20 I started editing the student publication, and I was fascinated by the machinations in student politics, and thus got really into covering that on campus. It was my goal to cover all the scandals amongst student politicians, and through that I gained an interest in political reporting.

I edited the politics section of Vibewire for a couple of years, then I got a job at New Matilda. I was also very interested in feminism, which is what ironically drew me to women’s magazines, because they’re a ground where you can discuss women’s issues. A few years after I left uni, I applied to be deputy editor of Girlfriend magazine.  Which is quite funny, because I’d never worked for a big magazine, but miraculously I got an interview. I think part of the reason I got an interview was because in my cover letter I was saying teenage girls were a lot wittier and more sassy and ironic in their consumption of media. They enjoy laughing at stuff. So when I pitched myself as a potential staff member – and by the way, I didn’t get the job – my basic pitch was ‘let’s work at helping Girlfriend better cater teenage girls’. The editor really liked my cover letter – but I bombed in the interview. It was my worst interview ever! But the editor loved my story pitches, so that’s how I started writing for them. Then I started writing for Cleo later because the same editor of the Girlfriend editorial team now works for Cleo.

So you did a lot of extracurricular activities during uni?

My career is very muddled. I did do a lot of extracurricular activities at university. In my undergraduate years I was hugely involved in everything on campus. I was involved in student politics; I was editor of the student publication; I was vice president of the Media Society for two years; I was involved in the activist left; I did lots and lots and lots of things. That’s how I got involved in Vibewire, and that’s what got me pitching freelance ideas to people. I was freelancing before I graduated, and I worked for a non-profit organisation for a year, Interchange New South Wales. I was doing their communications work and doing Vibewire on the side, and working with lots of talented young people there, who may have only been 19, 20, 21, but were getting published in a really major publication. It made me realise I could do paid work. I think it’s really important to tell young journalist that they don’t have to work for free. If you’re writing for small, independent publications, it might be necessary, but if you’re writing for newspapers or magazines or their websites, you certainly can get paid.

How do you pitch a story?

It can be quite a tricky thing to do. When I first started doing it, the first big publication I wrote for was the SMH. It was my goal at the beginning of 2005 to get published there. So I thought ‘The way I’m going to make his happen is by submitting them an article every week until they take my stories’. And the idea wasn’t so much to bug them, but when you’re a newbie, people don’t know you, so they don’t trust you. I guess being an editor [and] seeing someone’s name once a week would have been a bit much. Maybe every two weeks would have been a bit better! But you’re going to become a familiar commodity for them and they’re going to be more likely to want to take your work.

Fortunately for me, they took the second story I sent them so I didn’t have to keep sending them stuff! The early nerd gets her stuff published in the herald. So just be someone that’s in front of people, and do good work. Don’t just send an email and say “Hi Editor! I want to write this!” Submit the entire story. If you can write, and you can argue, and you can be entertaining, they can see that. They have all of that evidence in front of them. Magazines are a lot harder to break into than newspapers. I’ve spoken to my editors at mags, and they’ve run a lot of workshops on pitching and teaching people how to pitch and freelance. I think pitching is hard because it’s an art. I wasn’t very good at it at the start, although I somehow managed to get work published using pitches that were quite poorly constructed.

What was your worst mistake?

Getting a pitch accepted and then not writing the article! Sometimes when you pitch a really complicated article, it can become quite overwhelming when you put it together. So, it was silly, but I don’t think it ruined my career or anything. I think a huge mistake other new writers make is not knowing the publication you’re writing for. I think people have preconceived notions about what magazines or newspapers will publish, but you’ve got to read them very carefully. The art of pitching isn’t just coming up with a great story idea, but about figuring out a certain publication would approach it, like what kind of language would they use, and then present that in your pitch. It’s really hard to learn when you’re starting out.

What do you love most about freelancing?

Coming up with ideas.

What’s the worst?

Waiting for people to pay you. For people starting out, it difficult to even get paid at all. One of the problems in the proliferation of large media companies who aren’t paying writers for their work. I’ve been paid for writing for 5 years now but I still get approached to write for free. But if you’re younger, and the exposure is worth it, go for it.

Who’s your idol?

Simone de Beauvoir. I read a book about her the other day, and the life that she led was just really admirable. I liked the freedom that she had. She was an awful person in some respects, but I admired her commitment to their friends. They did exciting things, [and] they made good work.