Pitches wanted (culture, technology) | $450 per article
Added 2025-02-07 23:31:47 +0000 UTCCOMPANY/PUBLICATION: WHOLE EARTH REDUX
Deadline: 14 March 2025
Now accepting submissions to the Whole Earth Redux, a forthcoming print publication featuring contemporary writers responding to the Whole Earth Index.
CALL FOR PITCHES
When the Whole Earth Catalog reached the public in 1968, it argued that technology could be personal, living could be communal, and information could be free. Its pages—dense with listings for books on cybernetics, how-to guides for constructing geodesic domes, and advertisements for mail-order organic seeds—presented readers a way of life compatible with both the dawning Information Age and the unfolding ecological crisis. This vision not only inspired a cohort of back-to-the-land counterculturalists bullish about the liberatory potential of technology, but continues to color the aspirations of contemporary technofuturists and econauts alike. But even as Whole Earth’s mythical status has grown, particularly here in the San Francisco Bay Area, actual copies of the Catalog have become harder and harder to access.
In 2023, Gray Area (in collaboration with the Internet Archive and the Long Now Foundation) launched the Whole Earth Index, the publication’s first complete online archive, to make it easier to access the tools, ideas, and practices highlighted in the Catalog and its subsequent imprints. Now, we are excited to announce the Whole Earth Redux, a print publication featuring essays and short stories that take an object from the Index and excavate its deeper histories, argue its importance for understanding the present, or imagine the alternate realities it inspires. These works will generate novel insights into Whole Earth’s role in shaping contemporary technoculture, as well as what underexplored potential or cautionary tales the Index reveals for reimagining the role technology plays in constructing (counter)cultures.
Gray Area seeks proposals for essays of 2,200–5,000 words for inclusion in the Whole Earth Redux print publication. Contributors will receive editorial support and $450 in compensation. Selected writers will be notified by March 21 and will be expected to produce a draft by May 23.
For example, pitches to the Whole Earth Redux might respond to:
A guide for organizing a people’s political campaign by Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown in the Fall 1974 edition of Coevolution Quarterly, edited by the Black Panther Party
Media theorist Gene Youngblood’s 1977 proposal for a National Information Utility
“Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums,” Stewart Brand’s reportage on the computing scene for a 1974 special publication of Whole Earth entitled II Cybernetic Frontiers
A listing for the Hewlett-Packard 9100A Calculator: “the best of the new tabletop number crunchers”
We look forward to reading about what Whole Earth represents for you; submit your pitch by March 14 and stay tuned for the release of Whole Earth Redux in mid 2025. Please direct any questions to Hannah Scott (hannah.scott@grayarea.org).
The Whole Earth Redux is generously supported by the Incite Institute at Columbia University.
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CONTACT INFORMATION:
Submissions: Via the webform
Website: https://grayarea.org
TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:
Learn more about the publication: Gray Area is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that operates at the intersection of art, technology, and society. It offers exhibitions, educational programs, and creative development labs to foster innovative artistic expression and explore the impact of technology on culture. The organization aims to cultivate a community where art and technology converge to address critical social issues. More information 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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