Deliberate Freelancer

Today’s guest is Wudan Yan, an independent journalist in Seattle, who covers science and society. She has written for National Geographic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Elemental, Harper’s and MIT Tech Review. Wudan also writes for brands and is a fact-checker. She is the co-host of The Writers’ Co-op, a business podcast for freelance writers. Her co-host is Jenni Gritters, also based in Seattle, and the two describe their podcast as an “audio handbook for freelance creatives.” In summer 2019, Wudan self-published an article on Medium called “I was owed about $5,000 from late-paying publications. I tried to hold them all accountable. Here’s what happened.” The article hit a nerve with freelancers and went viral. Wudan wrote the article after she returned from a two-week vacation and none of the $5,000 she was owed by clients was in her bank account. She freaked out. But she was also fed up with clients’ excuses about not paying on time. She had read a social media post from a photojournalist who added a