Freelancers never know where their next story could come from. For freelancer Christian Feuerstein, it was attending a keynote speech at her college reunion that brought her the awe-inspiring story of a famous alum and Nobel Prize winner who survived Nazi Germany.

So, she did some digging to find the appropriate editor at  the Italian American mag Ambassador and fired off her pitch.

“None of [Feuerstein's clips] blew me away, necessarily,” said editor  Don Oldenburg, “but I appreciated her professional approach and that she followed our requirements for a pitch: make it brief and convincing, tell me why you’re the writer to handle the story, and give me two or three clips.”

To see our breakdown of the actual query letter and more reasons Oldenburg green lighted the assignment, check out Pitches That Worked: Ambassador. [sub req'd]