By S. Kalekar
These are calls for themed pitches and submissions of nonfiction/essays/reportage. Some of the themes are: forbidden fruit; late bloomers; big work change; beauty (from a neurodivergent perspective); war movies; fair; econundrums; and the art of making connections in storytelling. A couple of the outlets also accept other formats, like fiction and poetry.
Cake Zine: Forbidden Fruit
Cake Zine is looking for pitches for their 7th issue, on the ‘Forbidden Fruit’ theme. They have detailed guidelines, including, “Cake Zine’s seventh issue, Forbidden Fruit, explores temptation and transgression in the context of fruit. We are looking for pitches about secrets, contraband, vice, and indulgence—if it’s irresistible, illicit, or intoxicating, we want to hear about it. Successful submissions will have a clear but creative connection to fruit, whether literal (fresh from the vine, smuggled across borders, transformed in a dessert) or more metaphorical (the fruits of labor, knowledge, queerness, or desire). Ideally, even figurative connections will include some actual fruit—but if your idea is compelling enough, we’ll consider it. … We are also looking for imaginative dessert recipes that incorporate fruit and are directly in conversation with the “forbidden” theme.” They also accept fiction, poetry, and other formats. They pay $125-300. The pitch deadline is 24 March 2025. Details here.
Betches: Late bloomers
Betches “is a multimedia brand developed and run for women, by women.” You can read about them here. An editor has issued a pitch call: “Betches is seeking pitches from late bloomers, anything from a first kiss in your 20s to learning to ride a bike as an adult. We’re interested in candid essays and humor pieces. Send pitches to emma@betches.com. Rate is dependent on angle & type of story ($250-$400)” Details here.
Rooted in Rights: Disability survival and perseverance strategies
Rooted in Rights is a program of Disability Rights Washington. Their website says, it “tells disability stories by disabled people.” They produce short videos, short and long form documentary pieces, blogs, trainings, resources, and events. The Rooted in Rights blog has launched a new call for submissions, inviting disabled writers to share their survival and perseverance strategies in a 500-word blog piece. “This new call focuses on gathering specific resources that can help disabled individuals and communities adapt and survive these turbulent times.
We’re interested in sharing resources ranging from organizing tips, strategies on getting basic needs met, highlighting a direct service organization, to things that bring you joy, books, comedy or media recommendations, accessibility work arounds, tips for finding community, strategies for rest, and strategies for resistance.
Rooted in Rights welcomes pitches that emphasize the disability community’s creativity, resistance and ingenuity, with a focus on specific resource sharing and mutual support. Writers have the option to publish their work anonymously.” They pay $400. Submission/pitching is via a form on the website, and there is no deadline given. Details here.
Business Insider: Older parents; millionaires and relationships; and other themes
An editor for Business Insider has issued calls for personal essay pitches on a few themes:
“Being an older parent — how you feel about it, how your parents felt about it, etc.
Kids being disruptive — you thought you had done everything right with your parenting, and your kid did something bad.
Millionaires and relationships — is it hard to make friends? date?
Names — looking for fresh angles on name changes, loving/hating your name, etc.
Tesla/Cybertruck — are you selling/not yours?” See the pitch calls on LinkedIn here.
Business Insider: Big work change
Another editor for Business Insider has issued a pitch call, too: “Looking for #freelance pitches for @BusinessInsider of people who quit/left/lost a job and had it spark a major change for their life/home/etc.” And, “big work change stories start at $240+ for about 600~ words.” See the pitch call / thread here.
Motley Bloom: Beauty
Motley Bloom publishes “voice-driven pieces that feature lived experiences of neurodivergence.” An editor has issued a pitch call. “Our April digital theme is beauty: inner, outer, and natural. We’re looking for a variety of short- and long-form articles, listicles, researched and reported pieces, and first-person narratives on the intersection of neurodivergence and…
External beauty: make-up, fashion, all forms of outward self-expression that intersect with or showcase our neurodivergence
Internal beauty: self-love and self-care, vulnerability, how we show ourselves care after experiencing rejection
Natural beauty: parks, forests, beaches – where we go to be inspired and get regulated in nature
As always, writers must have lived experience with neurodivergence.” They pay $300 to $500. The pitch deadline is 18 March 2025. See the editor’s call here and their general pitch guide here.
Military.com: Column on analyses of war movies
Military.com is a news and information website for U.S. service members, veterans and their families; you can read more about them here. Their content editor has issued a pitch call for a new column; “I am launching a movie column at @militarydotcom.bsky.social, tentatively titled ‘Theater of War.’ I am looking for compelling analyses of war movies new and old, whether it’s of a specific scene or a broader theme.” Rates start at $400. See the pitch call / thread here.
Bright Wall/Dark Room: Community
This magazine publishes non-fiction on cinema. “We’re looking for thoughtful analysis and wholehearted engagement, as opposed to standard reviews, clickbait, or hot takes. We publish interviews, profiles, formal analysis, cultural criticism, personal essays, and humor pieces. We’re looking for writing that is savvy and insightful about filmmaking, but that also grapples in some way with the business of being alive.” Their upcoming theme is Community – “We’re looking for creative, thoughtful, engaging essays on films about finding community, forming community, or the power of communities for our upcoming May/June 2025 issue.” They’re also accepting off-theme submissions, for which there is no deadline. They pay $100, and the deadline for the themed issue is 31 March 2025. Details here and here.
Kitchen Work: Cities
Kitchen Work is a print journal; for their next issue, the theme is Cities. “Please send us writing about markets, cafes, urban picnics, tiny kitchens, and big dinner tables in your favorite city.” They accept works of up to 3,000 words on various topics, including (but not limited to) foods and wines, cooking, cookbooks, restaurants, personal gastronomic histories, and more. They also say, “all submissions about the work of the kitchen are especially welcome.” And, “in addition to general submissions, kitchen work also seeks submissions for recipes and bottle notes—a section of the journal devoted to favorite recipes or bottles of wine. These should include the recipe itself, or the name of the wine, and 500 words or fewer about its significance or some experience with it.” They pay $0.20/word, and the submission deadline is 15 March 2025. Details here.
The New York Times: Modern Love
Modern Love is a nonfiction column of the New York Times. They want “honest personal essays about contemporary relationships. We seek true stories on finding love, losing love and trying to keep love alive. We welcome essays that explore subjects such as adoption, polyamory, technology, race and friendship — anything that could reasonably fit under the heading “Modern Love.” Ideally, essays should spring from some central dilemma you have faced. It is helpful, but not essential, for the situation to reflect what is happening in the world now.” Also, “Love may be universal, but individual experiences can differ immensely and be informed by factors including race, socio-economic status, gender, disability status, nationality, sexuality, age, religion and culture.” Send essays of 1,500-1,700 words. They especially welcome work from historically underrepresented writers, and from those outside the US. Modern Love has two submission periods, March through June, and September through December. Writers are paid. Details here.
(Also see their Tiny Love Stories column; these are also personal essays similar in theme to Modern Love, but much shorter, of 100 words.)
Barn Raiser: Local organizers doing transformative work in their community, and more
Barn Raiser wants pitches on topics that affect people in rural and small town America. While they’re open to pitches on any topic, right now they’re particularly interested in reported pieces on a few topics: Pesticides and corporate accountability; sewage sludge; PFAS; pipelines and campaigns in resistance to pipelines; local organizers doing transformative work in their community; authoritarian threats in local communities; and censorship or suppression of free speech in public education and libraries. They pay $200-500. See the pitch call/thread here.
MIT Technology Review: Security
MIT Technology Review will publish a Security-themed issue in September/October 2025. For print issues, they run short news stories and profiles (500-800 words), op-eds, and data spreads in the front of the book and essaysand book reviews in the back of the book (usually around 2,000 words). They also publish narrative features, investigations, big profiles, and reported essays (generally between 2,500-4,000 words); the features are around the issue theme. “Rates range from $1 to $2 per word, depending on the experience level of the writer, the story, and the publication route. Deeply reported features pay more than shorter news pieces” and according to their general guide, the pitch deadline for the Security theme is mid to late March 2025 (please see their note about more specific deadlines on the guidelines page). Their general pitch guide, which also includes issue themes, is here.
Point.me: Destination-focused newsletter
Point.me, a website about how to travel with points, has issued a pitch call for a new newsletter. “We’re looking at launching a destination-focused newsletter at point.me, and I’m looking for pitches from writers with deep expertise in a particular city or region(live in/visit often). These’ll be a mix of inspiration and practical info: why go/what makes the place great, where to stay, what to do, how to get there on points. Unsure of word count; thinking 800-ish and ~$250 payment. Knowledge of points is helpful, but we can write “how to get there” in-house if you don’t have it”. They’re accepting pitches via a form, on a rolling basis. See the pitch call/thread here.
Scottish BPOC Writers Network (SBWN): Sustain
This is a call for Black writers and writers of colour based in Scotland. They want pitches for the SBWN blog, and the theme is ‘Sustain’. They have detailed pitch prompts, including: What sustains you?; Sustainability in action; Traditions and the passing on of practices; Loss and rebuilding. They can accept pitches in text, audio and/or video format. They pay £135. The pitch deadline is 14 March 2025. Details here and here.
Fortunately, magazine: Fair
Fortunately, is a biannual print and digital publication about art, culture and solidarity economies. They have issued a pitch call for their second issue; the theme is ‘Fair’. “Partnerships, parleys, polycules—In Issue 02 of Fortunately Magazine, we explore forms of communal exchange and transfers for unprecedented times and uncertain futures. This issue probes how institutions influence our daily transactions, which range from the subtle to the explicit: a look across the room, a heated dialogue between conspirators, or the frenzy of the market. FAIR considers ways for ideas, commodities, and resources to flow from production to consumption in systems that prioritize collective well-being over accumulation through pragmatic or even deviant means. Through the lenses of art, design, and organizing, FAIR seeks to unpack pathways toward decolonized economies, care-centered models, and futuristic forms of exchange—be they relational, material, or conceptual. This issue invites contributors and readers alike to rethink how we negotiate, share, barter, and sustain in a world craving equity, imagination, and indebtedness without the exploitative debt.” They pay $300, and the pitch deadline is 17 March 2025. Details here and here.
GenderIT.org: Unyielding – Personal essays from women human rights defenders
Their website says, “GenderIT.org is a project of the Women’s Rights Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications. The site is a think tank OF and FOR women’s rights, sexuality, sexual rights and internet rights activists, academics, journalists and advocates. We carry articles, news, podcasts, videos, comics and blogs on internet policy and cultures from a feminist and intersectional perspective, privileging voices and expressions from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Arabic-speaking countries and Eastern Europe.” They’ve issued a pitch call specifically for women human rights defenders (WHRDs); they have detailed guidelines, including, “The Safety for Voices (SfV) consortium, which includes organisations and individuals representing the Global Majority region, is inviting WHRDs from the Asia Pacific, Africa, MENA and Latin America to share their stories of not just fighting back and being resilient, but also of being vulnerable in situations that threatened their personhood and questioned their commitment to defend human rights.
We are looking for 20 WHRDs to contribute personal essays and stories to the anthology focused on documenting and highlighting their resilience, challenges, and triumphs in the face of threats from state and societal actors. The stories will be in voices of the WHRDs, documented as personal essays, poems, in short and long form, spoken or written – we are not bound by format.” They’ve also detailed the anthology structure / sections in their guidelines. They will pay $300-600 for the essays they commission. The deadline for pitches in 18th March 2025. Details here.
Curationist: 2025 themes
They want pitches for features that “critically investigate and contextualize the Works in open access archives. Writers build essays from the histories, narratives, and art of global cultures across time.This call for feature proposals is open to arts writers, artists, historians, curators, librarians, archivists, and anyone in the GLAM field with an interest in engaging with our readers and our mission. …Invited guest writers will be welcomed to the Curationist community. They will have the opportunity to develop their proposal into an essay which will be published as part of our Editorial Features. In the process, guest writers will also learn about image rights and the open knowledge movement; and have the feedback and research assistance of our experienced editorial team and digital archivists.
The ideal guest writer will have an interest in the history and contemporary context of cultural objects and materials. … Curationist promotes storytelling and curiosity through a social justice lens that is anti-racist, anti-colonial, feminist, queer, and anti-ableist.” And, “Curationist Features Topics Themes for 2024/25: We seek proposals for new feature essays that address topics that are not already well-covered in our editorial features, delving into new corners of the archive. … Some topic suggestions for 2025: film, animals and taxidermy, botany and plants, architecture, interior design and furniture, museum conservation, cookbooks, the nonvisual senses.” They pay $1,500 for approximately 1,500-word features. The pitch deadline is 30 March 2025. Details here.
The Lead: Environment; Education; Culture; Inequality
UK-based The Lead publishes work “on politics, culture, and everything in between. We cover the sharp angles that define our life in the UK today: poverty, racism, climate change, corporate and government malfeasance, the breakdown of our healthcare system and the fracturing of the state.” You can read more about them here. An editor is looking to commission pitches. “I’m after brilliantly researched features on environment/education/culture/inequality, always with a focus on the human story. Please take a look at our latest newsletters to get a sense of the tone, and recent stories we have already covered As always – pitches from underrepresented voices are particularly encouraged”. See the pitch call/thread here.
Parapraxis: Romance
Parapraxis is the magazine of the Psychosocial Foundation. Their website says, “Parapraxisis committed to a relatively unknown endeavor: to engender a psychoanalysis for the twenty-first century so that we might inquire into, and uncover, the psychosocial dimension of our lives. … Critically aware of the limits of psychoanalytic thinking and institutions, the magazine includes searching reviews, novel clinical writing, columns on cultural and social movements, and thematic feature essays. We believe this magazine reinvigorates leftist psychoanalytic thought in the academy and the clinic, but we address a more general audience. Whereas there are many literary magazines and leftist magazines, there are no popular magazines devoted exclusively to the advancement of critical psychoanalytic thinking.” They have both, themed print, and unthemed online issues. They’re reading pitches on the Romance theme for their next print edition (Issue 7), and unthemed pitches for the web. They pay $500-800 for print, and $500 for web. They do not want fiction or poetry. See the pitch call/thread here. Their general pitch guide is here (scroll down).
Mother Jones: Econundrums
Mother Jones publishes investigative journalism in print and online. Apart from features, they also accept pitches for columns for their print issues; one of these is Econundrums. “In this reported 1,000-word column, writers makes a compelling argument or reveal a basic problem or inequity around a topic related to the environment, science, health, and occasionally other topics that affect our readers’ daily lives. Recent examples include the case for over-the-counter birth control, the disturbing rise of online pre-K programs, the case for open access to scientific journals, and the lack of adequate pain medication for IUD insertion.” For print, rates start at $1.75 per word. For online, rates start at $0.75 a word. Details here.
Consequence Magazine
They publish work “that addresses the human experiences, realities, and consequences of war and geopolitical violence through literature and art.” They accept nonfiction (interviews, essays, and narrative non-fiction, up to 4,000 words), fiction (including flash and excerpts), poetry, translations, and art. All works will be considered for online and print. Pay is $30-50 for print prose, $50 for online prose, and $20/poem for print poetry, $50 for online poetry. The deadline is 15 April 2025. Details here.
Green European Journal: Looking for Freedom
They have issued a detailed pitch call, including, “The next print edition of the Green European Journal will explore what freedom means in an era of deep polarisation and geopolitical tension. We are open to essays, photo essays, interviews, and graphic stories. The deadline to send your pitch is Wednesday, 26 March 2025.” They usually pay €300-350 for stories of 2,000-2,500 words. See the editor’s call on BlueSky here and the theme details on their website here.
WordWorks: Writing for Change
WordWorks is the writer’s magazine of the Federation of British Columbia Writers (FBCW). They prioritise submissions by FBCW members, but will accept submissions from all writers with a connection to BC or Yukon. They’re accepting pitches for their next issue, and the theme is ‘Writing for Change’. “Our Summer 2025 issue of WordWorks celebrates the power of words to influence the world around us: to name, to engage, to inspire, to provoke, to influence — to make a difference.
Have someone else’s words given you a new perspective or inspired you to take up a new cause? Has your own writing been a form of activism? What difference have your words made? What changes are you still looking to see? How can our stories change the world?
Your pitch should include a clear connection to the issue’s theme and a summary of what a reader will get from your article. We are particularly interested in articles that encourage, inspire, and/or provide valuable advice or information to our readers.” They pay CAD125 for articles of 400–550 words and CAD250 for articles of 800–1,050 words; they will consider longer features, as well. They pay CAD50 for article reprints (see guidelines). They accept creative writing from FBCW members only. The pitch deadline for articles is 14 March 2025. Details here.
HerStories Project: Midstory Magazine
HerStories is a community of midlife women who write; you can read more about them here. For Midstory Magazine, they say, “We accept original personal essay submissions for Midstory Magazine about life, love, loss, and friendship at midlife. These stories could incorporate coupling and uncoupling, keeping and ending friendships, and grieving the loss of relationships or loved ones during this messy middle of life. We are looking for a strong, clear writing voice and raw, honest storytelling, in keeping with our mission to elevate the voices of midlife women.” They want complete essays only, not pitches. Pay is $75 for essays of 750-2,000 words. Details here.
Writer’s Digest: The Art of Making Connections in Storytelling
Writer’s Digest is a print and online magazine for writers, which aims to “keep readers abreast of industry trends, of the latest writers who found success and what they did to achieve it, and of innovative ways to improve and empower the inner raconteur” of their readers. They consider completed manuscripts on spec, as well as original pitches. They say writers should allow 2-4 months for a response. They’re accepting work for their September/October 2025 theme, The Art of Making Connections in Storytelling. “Connections make up all parts of writing—connecting characters to each other, connecting readers to stories, and writers connecting to agents/publishers/readers, and more. In this issue, featuring our annual roundup of literary agents and how best to connect with them, we also would like to see articles on all the types of connections mentioned here, and other ideas inspired by how our contributors connect with this theme.” You can read about that, and other upcoming themes, here; pitching for each theme is via a form on their website, which will close when the issue is filled. Apart from features, they have several departments and columns. They pay $0.50/word for first world rights for one-time print use and perpetual electronic use. They do not pay for unsolicited online articles and guest posts, except in rare cases when the content is highly focused or unique, in which case they pay $50-$100. General submission guidelines are here.
Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.