Pitches wanted (roads) | $100 to $500 per article

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: SOUTHWEST CONTEMPORARY

Deadline: 7 November 2025

Call for Pitches: Southwest Contemporary Vol. 13 — The Road

Listing type: Call for Writers

Website: airtable.com/form

Deadline: November 7, 2025

Southwest Contemporary magazine is now accepting pitches for our Spring-Summer 2026 print issue, themed “The Road.”

From El Camino Real to Route 66. From the transcontinental railroad to the Interstate highway system. Roads have defined, shaped, and connected the Southwest across the millennia.

In Southwest Contemporary, Volume 13, we want to explore The Road as idea, as function, as experience, as connecting space and sinew. We are interested in highlighting artists who are examining roads materially and conceptually—from time-honored trails to soaring concrete cathedrals of freeway overpasses.

The open road often appears as a place of epiphany, a transition between states of being. Vehicles can be containers for identity, at the same time that the movement of the road offers a space for anonymity and disappearance. Roads can also obliterate, divide, and threaten communities and environments.

In this issue, we are not looking for simple “road trip” stories. Instead, we want to deconstruct the romantic notions, and zero in on the passage and what it means—movements and traces through time and space.

• How do roads transform or define places or people?

• How do roads reveal rich information about the landscape around them? (Think: property lines, water sources, safe passages, danger zones)

• How does art depict what takes place in the crossroads, in the margins, in the swarms of tourists and commerce, in the desolate in-between spaces?

• What are the visual elements and aesthetics of the road? (Think: motion, roadside attractions, map-making, horizon lines, signage, detritus, hi-viz colors and paint)

• What do roads connect? What is bypassed?

• What are ways art travels and roams? How do artists perform itinerancy?

• The stories you pitch should be art- and/or artist-centered, that tell us something new about history, experience, place, or perhaps placelessness. Keep in mind the function of visuals in the context of a print magazine. The strongest pitches will leverage imagery that goes beyond straight landscape and tie into specific bodies of artwork.

We invite pitches for print articles related to this theme in the form of:

• Studio visits/artist profiles (800 words).

• Reporting (1200–2000 words).

• Features (1200–2000 words).

• Creative essays (400–700 words).

• Interviews (500–2000 words).

• Cultural criticism (1200–2000 words).

• Travel writing / Field Reports (1200–1500 words).

• Reviews (exhibitions reviews should be timely and do not need to adhere to the theme) (300 words).

• (Please note we do not accept submissions of poetry).

PITCH SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Pro tip: Read our pitch guidelines before you submit!

New to Southwest Contemporary? If you haven’t yet written for Southwest Contemporary, please share 1-2 writing samples in the “link” or “attachment” fields of the submission form. Writing samples need not be published.

New to arts writing? We seek a diverse range of voices, perspectives, and rhetorical styles. We believe both established and aspiring writers are capable of making valuable contributions to SWC, and our goal is to empower each writer to hone their writing skills and cultivate their own unique voice.

If your pitch is accepted and SWC commissions a story, you can expect to work closely and collaboratively with arts editor Natalie Hegert and editorial director Jordan Eddy throughout the editorial process.

You are welcome to submit more than one pitch, but please make a separate submission for each story idea.

FEES

All contributors are compensated and articles commissioned for print will be paid according to article length and type (essay, feature, review, etc). The fee will be agreed upon at the time of commission, and typically range $100–500.

 
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Based on our conflicts of interest policy, contributors are not permitted to write about their own work. If you are interested in sharing your work with us for editorial consideration for this issue, please consider submitting to our call for artists.

TIMELINE

Deadline for The Road print pitches: Friday, November 7, 2025.

Deadline for drafts: fall in December 2025–January 2026.

Issue published: March 2026.

QUESTIONS?

Contact Natalie Hegert, arts editor, at natalie@southwestcontemporary.com.

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CONTACT INFORMATION:

• Submissions: Via the webform

• Website: https://southwestcontemporary.com/

TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:

• Learn more about the publication: Southwest Contemporary is a magazine devoted to the art, culture, and creative life of the American Southwest. It publishes articles, essays, reviews, photography, and visual projects centered on regionally grounded but broadly resonant artistic expression. Its mission is to document, amplify, and deepen the contemporary cultural narratives of the Southwest through rigorous criticism, evocative storytelling, and vibrant visual engagement. More information here.

• Read through a selection of recent articles/stories on its website.

• Review the submission guidelines here.

• Check out our collection of pitch excerpts on this page and find more sample pitches at The Open Notebook and at SuccessfulPitches.com.

• Do not forget to end your pitch with (1) a short introduction about yourself; (2) a few lines highlighting your writing experience, relevant credentials and publication credits; and (3) links to your strongest work or portfolio, and online profile.

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