Pitches wanted (TRPGs) | $300 per piece

COMPANY/PUBLICATION:  CONTEMPORARIES

Deadline: 1 October 2021

Dr. Emily Friedman is looking for pitches:

Call for Pitches on TRPGs and longform storytelling now for Contemporaries ($300/piece)

I am seeking 500-2000 word dialogues, manifestos, interviews, and thinkpieces from creators, fans, mods, and voices across the community. Pitch me at https://aub.ie/Post45TRPG.

This is an academic venue designed for public scholarship. Contemporaries doesn't have traditional peer review, but your work will be edited with care and attention. The tone is conversational, though we are hoping you go deep.

It is very important to me that creators outside academia be part of this, and I knew that meant putting money where my mouth is. And thanks to a subvention from Auburn University, we are able to provide the listed honorarium.

My goal is to have voices/perspectives/thoughts on every facet of what it means to be in TRPGs now: from designers to players to streamers to on-camera and off-camera labor to fans and more.

As my call states, we are open to a variety of forms: dialogues, collective statements/manifestos, interviews, as well as more traditional essays/analyses. Get weird.

While the call notes Dungeons & Dragons (because of course it does, I had to explain myself to non-TRPG-nerds to get this going), I am serious when I say I want a much more capacious view of what TRPGs are and can be.

I am also very serious about encouraging folks who might be nervous about writing for something "academic". I am very, very happy to work with new authors with a compelling perspective about finding the right angle/tone/whatever.

We will only have room for up to 10 pieces for this (because editorial labor is labor, as I hope many potential contributors are keenly aware).

I could go on (and surely will, because I will be hyping this thing as hard as I can). This is my baby. I want to do right by it. I'll surely fuck up somehow, but not for lack of trying.

SOME POSSIBLE TOPICS:

• Narrative expectations from other media/genres
• Changing pace
• Backstage" labor (modding, production, graphics, etc.)
• Impact of livestreaming on TRPG design/marketing
• Offline/online, public/private community & network building
• Defining pro/amateur

TIMELINE FOR SUBMISSIONS
(remember: academics move slow)

• Pitches due: October 1, 2021
• Response to proposals: November 30, 2021
• Full pieces due: January 10, 2022
• Publication: Spring/Summer 2022
• That said, happy to talk and help think through possibilities.

About me: I grew up Highly Online in the 90s and cut my teeth on TRPGs during the height of Vampire. I've lived my whole life among Theatre Kids (and now I teach them). My own research focuses on the impact of various textual/extratextual elements on audience's expectations.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Submissions: Via the webform

Website: https://post45.org/contemporaries/