Pitches wanted (food and arts) (worldwide) | ~50 cents per word

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: VITTLES 

Season 6: Food and the Arts

Any season on food and art has to first define what art actually is, which is perhaps a whole essay in itself. So while we don’t make any claims to say what art definitively is, nor are we interested in doing so, to make the season’s theme as expansive as possible we have decided to name it ‘Food and the Arts’ to be clear that our definition is not limited to paintings or what might get shown in an art gallery. It extends to sculpture, music, architecture, film, photography, sound installations, literature, poetry, handicrafts, traditional and nontraditional manufacturing of things that surround food, artistic practitioners who use food itself as a medium in making visual art and probably many other things that we haven’t yet even considered. Perhaps the only real criteria we have is that the person or people making the work consider it to be a form of artistic or creative expression.

For us, art goes beyond the exclusively and straightforwardly didactic, explanatory or instrumental – though those things can be aspects of artistic work. Art has an affective power on the bodies of those who encounter it; there may be mystery or ambiguity and emotion – and meaning might not be present in a straightforward way. It is through the encounter of viewers, listeners and readers that art – visual, audio/musical, literary – develops its significance. There is a political dimension to the production of art – how it is made, by whom, when, and how its status and meaning evolves through time and depending on who views it.

Therefore, for this season we are interested in essays (considered in the widest possible sense) that explore the presence of food within different artistic media. We want these essays to tease out emotional content, textures, political potencies and each writer’s personal responses. Rather than a straightforward ‘thumbs up/thumbs down’ argument, we want rich critical explorations, though that could also mean an ode or a paean. We are also looking for pieces where the medium is itself the art. This means, for the first time, Vittles will be open to submissions of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, music, audio and film, as well as pieces in translation, or where translation itself is the creative act. Magazines can do many things a newsletter cannot, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t exploit what a newsletter can do. If we can find a way for it to work on Substack, we would love to see submissions of visual art or mixed media work that use text and images (and maybe video, where possible), or other varied forms of expression as they might be proposed.

Whatever the medium, as always Vittles is interested in texts that explore questions concerning food itself – its production, consumption, histories and political entanglements, and how something grand can tell us more about smaller, unglamourous things. We want to combat the lustre that ensues when we think of both food and art: yes, it is delicious and beautiful, but food is also labour and growing and power, while art should be radical and signify the lives of those who participate in it.

PITCHING GUIDE

There are many antecedents on the subject of food and the arts, so rather than write a precise pitching guide with exact instructions, we thought we should list some of the things that have inspired us by thinking about this season. Pitching guide as vibe.

Our thoughts on this season have been informed by, in no particular order: Granta’s 1995 edition on food writing; the descriptions of farming in Virgil’s Georgics; the Food and Imagination theme of the Oxford Food Symposium; Digesting Recipes: The Art of Culinary Notation by Susannah Worth; the food metaphors in Meatless Days by Sara Suleri; the work of the Fluxus art movement; the role food plays in Karukku by Bama; Raymond Antrobus’s poems in The Perseverance; Riaz Phillips’s poem ‘Your Food Smells’; imagining what artists and poets eat, the descriptions of teabags in Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain; the appearance of fruit in Mughal paintings; the food at the Isobar, Gordon Matta-Clark’s NYC artist-run restaurant FOOD…

Given that Sharanya is based in Delhi, we also want to concentrate more on South-Asian food culture that isn’t being covered in other outlets (including Vittles’s previous coverage on demotic Indian and Pakistani foods.) We want to cover more folklore and language outside documented forms, and examine how food is used to convey emotional and social landscapes. Folklore is often written about, and not written in, as a mode; we’d love to read pitches outside the usual realm of dictated Anglophone writing and what are considered the ‘correct’ forms of storytelling. As always with South Asian writing, we are disinterested in anything that glorifies the lineages of the powerful or conceives of South Asia in polarising terms that conform to geo-political biases (India as colourful glitz! Pakistan as grim and troubled!) The big exception to this are plunges into ridiculous rich people things, which are always extremely welcome.

While Vittles’ non-fiction essays are, as usual, worked on from pitch to completion through a editing process, fiction submissions will be taken more or less completed, with minor editing. We have decided to cap submissions at 3,000 words, with no minimum submission length, but like with anything we publish, this is arbitrary and may be overruled on a whim.

All pitches should be sent to vittlespitches@gmail.com (please note, this is a new email address.) We expect a high volume of pitches for this season, but we promise to get back to each one we receive within a month.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

The base rate for a whole newsletter for writers will now be £600, while rates for individual pieces will be worked out individually at something close to 40p per word.

Illustrations, where possible, will be £250 per newsletter. However, we’re also very excited to announce that for the first time Vittles will have a primary illustrator, Sing Yun Lee, whose work as the character Sinjin Li we have loved ever since their first illustration for Vittles on the food in Ursula LeGuin’s novels. We’re aware that this will mean fewer opportunities for other illustrators (and we will be commissioning illustrations outside of Sinjin when we feel the article needs it), but we are also looking forward to the newsletter having a more coherent visual language across the whole season.

Inspired by the work of one of our favourite online magazines, Pipe Wrench, we would also like to offer a contract to all freelance writers and illustrators who work with us. As writers ourselves, we are well aware of the precarity that comes with working with publications, whether large or small. We’d like to make a commitment in writing to continuing all the things Vittles already does: whether that’s being transparent about rates, paying on time (usually within a day, sometimes within minutes), offering good kill fees, or making sure every writer knows they own the copyright to their writing. We will be drafting a contract over the next few weeks and making it public when it’s ready.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

• Questions / submissions: vittleslondon@gmail.com
• Website: https://vittles.substack.com

TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:

• Learn more about the publication: Vittles is a food newsletter for novel times. It publishes food writing and culture writing from across the world, platforming writers, illustrators and chefs, particularly those not given space within the traditional food media.
• Read through a selection of recent articles/stories on its website.
• 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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