Pitches wanted (Southern US, Octavia Butler) | ~40 cents per word

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: SCALAWAG

OCTAVIA’S PARABELLUM. Octavia Butler remains one of the most formidable science fiction writers of all time. Period. 

A pioneering Black and woman writer for the genre, Butler is also a notable thinker who belongs to a group we at Scalawag consider “The South Deferred”—writers, intellectuals, activists and others who may not themselves call the South home, but are Southerners by way of the Great Migration. It is for this reason that we have chosen to invite Southern and South Deferred writers to think creatively about the Southern nature of our present fascist reality with Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.

Themes of slavery, racialized and gendered exploitation, reproductive violence, environmental catastrophe, political corruption, odyssey, and migration that permeate her vast oeuvre are inherently Southern matters, and therefore, are always on the table for interrogation here at Scalawag.

Welcoming speculative fiction and creative nonfiction that examines societal issues in the tradition of Butler's Parables, we invite writers to imagine—with the South as the frontier of the West’s collapse—answers to this central provocation:

If the issues apparent to us now continue to go unchecked, what might our reality look like in another 30 years? Alternatively, what might a fully realized abolitionist future look like? And what must be done, in the struggle against imperial fascism, to make it possible?

PROMPTS

Prompts from the Parables to consider as parallels with our contemporary moment:

• The rise of Christofascist cults and government leaders

• Censorship, the end of public education and growing mass illiteracy

• Debt warfare, peonage, and our advancing carceral apparatus

• Company towns, crypto-script, and the tech oligarchy’s labor future

• “Freedom cities”

• Space travel, the space economy, NASA/SpaceX/Defense Industry in the South

• Press freedom and media access under the tech oligarchy, privatization, and deregulation

• Borders and mass migration

• Climate catastrophe and the inability to “recover” from compounding disaster events

• Re-armament, endless warfare, and global fascist and anti-fascist geopolitical realignments

• Community-building and non/anti-state systems of care, defense, and preparedness

• Food, water, public health, healthcare access after system collapse

• Whose at-risk/on the margins/unthought (race, class, gender intersections)

• Rebuilding “the communal” in the aftermath of societal and infrastructural collapse

• Ruminations on “preparedness” and contemporary/historic methods

• Abolition, mass insurgency, and prison breaks

Please submit your pitches by emailing pitches@scalawagmagazine.org.

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CONTACT INFORMATION (please do not share the email address publicly):

• Questions/submissions: pitches@scalawagmagazine.org

• Website: https://scalawagmagazine.org

TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:

• Learn more about the publication: Scalawag Magazine is a digital publication focused on Southern politics, culture, and social justice. It covers topics such as racial justice, labor rights, environmental issues, and local activism, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented voices and communities in the American South. Scalawag aims to foster thoughtful dialogue and provide in-depth reporting on the challenges and opportunities facing the region. More information here.

• Read through its selection of recent articles/stories, categorized into: Southern Politics, Race & Place, Arts & Soul

• Review the submission guidelines here. Note that these are the publication's general guidelines to help you refine your pitch. You must still follow the editor's specific instructions above.

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