Come up with a fun, catchy headline and subheadline. The Return of the Unicorns Reclaiming colorful girlhood fantasies for a brave new world Start off with an intriguing anecdote. Shelby Luhanne is 25 years old, works full-time as a bank manager, and is wearing a unicorn sweater. “This one is actually only my second favorite,” she says. “My number one is made completely of sequins and has three unicorns with light-up horns.” Include sensory details and unique description to keep your readers’ attention. The current sweater, a glowing fuschia with a graceful, sparkling unicorn galloping across the front, is by no means dull, but is certainly not electrically wired. “I had to take that one to the dry cleaners’.” Give your readers a setting they can visualize, if applicable to your article. Luhanne is sitting on a bench in the flower garden path at Midway Park. Her sweater is almost the exact same shade of pink as the peonies just starting to bloom, which she didn’t realize at first but is now delighted by. “We’ve got to have a club meeting here,” Luhanne says, looking around the garden in full, riotous bloom. Fill in background information once you’ve caught your readers’ attention. Luhanne is the current president of the Unicorn Appreciation Guild of Lower Slossburg (UAGLS), which means she’s charged with “promoting unicorn love throughout the public sphere, as well as spreading general feelings of joy, uniqueness, kindness, and unity.” Transition smoothly into new ideas as you get to the heart of your article. The guild is currently comprised of 23 members, including a vice president, secretary, and treasurer (“she figures out how many shirts we can afford to buy every quarter,” Luhanne says), but their real strength is online. “Social media is our bread and butter,” Luhanne says, pulling out her phone. “We post at least three pictures every day.” Pictures of what? “Anything with unicorns.” Literally, anything: she scrolls through shots of unicorn-themed food, from cappuccinos to corn on the cob, unicorn hair in a rainbow of soft pastels, unicorn eyebrows, murals, and glittery unicorn hand sanitizer. The guild’s most popular picture has over 12,000 likes, and shows a young girl and her mother, both wearing a soft-looking rainbow hats and perched atop a 10-foot-tall, full-color unicorn statue. They’re both beaming. Include lots of quotes, but rephrase when you can make the concept easier to understand. The little girl’s name is Juliette, Luhanne explains, and she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer a year ago. “Juliette’s crazy about unicorns. Her mom called us,” Luhanne says. “She wanted to know if we could send a shirt or something, but we found out they were local and were able to meet in person. We all wanted to do something more.” The guild raised money by selling shirts and unicorn art online, then commissioned a local artist, Theodore Huntington, to design, create, and paint the statue. Describe new people to give your readers a vivid mental picture. A tall, older man with a full gray beard, Huntington smiled as he recalled creating piece. “The commission caught my eye for obvious reasons,” he says. “Then I heard the story behind it. At that point, there was no question in my mind that I had to do it.” He turned down the payment, instead donating the money to a research foundation developing treatments for Juliette’s form of cancer. He met Juliette and advised her to give the unicorn a good name. “She says, ‘I’ll call him Freddy.” The huge unicorn now lives in Juliette’s backyard, Luhanne says, next to her family’s peach trees. “I love that,” she says. “I love thinking about Juliette looking out the window from her bedroom and seeing Freddy and feeling like there’s a little bit of magic in her life.” Return to ideas or themes you introduced earlier in the article to bring it full circle. Luhanne knows that upon first listen, a lot of what UAGLS does seems trivial or even silly. “So much of it is just pure fun. We design clothes and jewelry and put on glitter and makeup and all that, just because it’s fun and we love doing it.” You don’t have to be the guild president, though, to realize that there’s more to it than that. Unicorns are going through a revival at the moment, embraced by enthusiasts of all ages and genders, along with so many other traditional staples of girlhood: kittens, rainbows, mermaids, fairies, glitter. It’s not just a coincidence, Luhanne says, that it’s happening against a backdrop of bleak global news where each week seems to bring a new disaster. End with a quote or sentence that resonates without being too dramatic. “Unicorns are magical, not because of what all the myths say about them, but because they make people smile.” Luhanne pushes up the sleeves of her shiny pink sweater. The spring sunshine is strong and warm. “I know that sounds so cheesy. But can you really deny it?”