Request a category

There's a kind of thing you'd like to read about that we're not covering yet? Tell us. Real, lightly-curated requests pile up here and we read them all.

What we're looking for: a category, not a single post. "Coffee" is a category (its history runs from Yemen in the 1400s through the espresso machine to today's pourover obsessives). "The story of how my grandmother's espresso pot ended up in a museum" is a single post — beautiful, but a one-off.

Good category requests are: specific enough to have a clear chain of milestones, broad enough that twenty short essays can fit inside, and about objects, techniques, or processes rather than people or eras.

Category name Why this category? (optional but helps) Your email (optional — if you'd like a heads-up when we publish) Send request

Requests aren't public. They go to a private inbox we read once a week. We'll add what we can; not everything is a fit, and we'll say if it isn't.