Thank you for your interest in being a guest on Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship.

Before sending an email to dearninapodcast@gmail.com, please read everything below so that my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs, and I can say YES.

The best way to get a sense of the format of Dear Nina is to listen to a few episodes. I also recommend scanning the titles in any podcast app and checking out the newlsetter at dearnina.substack.com. With almost 200 episodes and many newsletter posts, Rebekah and I have seen, heard, and considered MANY ideas by now, but we’re always open to a compelling idea that will help our listeners.

We get pitches daily, and we can’t accept many of them for issues of fit, repetition, schedule, or recording breaks. We are often months ahead on recording and behind on editing so please know that we genuinely can only accept a very small percentage of pitches.

You can see the episodes we’ve already recorded in chronological order or by subtopic. Note these are only the published episodes. There are always others in the pre-and-post production phase at any time as episodes roll out weekly.

A 2026 update

We are begging you: please do not send an AI-generated pitch. Rebekah and I would rather get a short, personal idea from you than a long computer-generated idea from ChatGPT or Claude. We’ve found that guests who pitch from the heart are more prepared when we sit down to record. Often a guest (and a guest’s publicist) who pitched using AI is not actually able to deliver on the idea when we start talking for the episode.

What are we looking for? 

Dear Nina episodes center on the premise that friendships and social connections are essential and that they take work. We know there’s a loneliness issue out there. That is all too broad for this show.

Get as specific and granular as possible. The best pitches have a point of view that will help listeners. The point of view will have something essential to say about making, keeping, or losing friends that we haven’t already centered an episode around.

In most cases, the guest and I dive into a friendship topic loosely related to the guest’s personal story, expertise, article, book, etc. (Note: I do not record formal interviews of authors about the whole book. And I rarely feature novels. You will see once you scan the titles why that would not work.) The reason you are the right guest for this topic should be clear and compelling.

What is in a successful pitch?

The most successful pitches include:

• Title options (A narrow and specific-enough topic will make the title options easy to write, and that is the right path for this show.)
• 3-4 bullet points with your ideas for the flow of the episode (Truly, no more than four. The episodes are around 30 minutes and we will record for around 40-50 minutes.)
• An obvious reason why you’re the right guest for the topic you’re pitching.
• Please include your social media links

THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP: When pitching an idea, think about the listeners wanting to be seen and heard in their own friendship issues. The show is for the listeners. What can you bring to the table to help listeners with the issues they’re dealing with in their friendships? That’s the perfect mindset for pitching this show.

Are you a selling a service, product, or book?

If you’re a selling a service, product, or a book, then a sponsorship of 2-4 weeks might be more appropriate AND a better way to get your service/product/book in front of many more listeners than one episode. I offer various (and reasonable) options for ads. Authors wanting to place an ad about a book get a discount!

Your ad gets placed at the beginning or the middle of our entire catalogue of over 190+ episodes. Click here for more information.

Ready to pitch your idea? 

Please send an email to dearninapodcast@gmail.com describing your episode idea. It can take up to two weeks for us to respond, though it’s usually sooner.

Thanks again for your interest! ~ Nina