Pitches from underrepresented voices wanted (longform non-fiction stories) | $6,000+ per piece

 [This opportunity was posted 30+ days ago and has expired.] 

We are commissioning! We want your pitches. We've done a lot to boost gender diversity in the last 2 years, but we need to do better with regard to other metrics. Female, Black, LQBTQIA+, however you identify—send me your best narrative longform ideas.

If you want to know what we're looking for, the short answer is cinematic, propulsive, gripping yarns. For a longer answer, here are our submission guidelines.

Have questions? Let me know. Want to get a taste of what we do? Here's our latest story.

We're a small outfit but we pay competitively. We cover expenses. We immerse ourselves in our projects. And we fact-check like our lives depend on it.

Fun Fact: 99 percent of our stories come from pitches. It's exceedingly rare that we assign a story idea to a writer. We love working with people on passion projects, stories they can't stop thinking about. And we love up-and-comers, looking to get a big story under their belts.

STORY LENGTH: No set length. we're looking for a very clear sense of what the plot of the piece is and why the writer is the person who can pull it off. We need more than a good idea; we want to be convinced that the writer can execute it. I'd say, on average, good pitches are about a page.

COMPENSATION: Rates vary per story, but we do not pay less than $6,000 (that doesn't include expenses). And we are happy to pay kill fees up front.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We accept pitches for longform, character-driven, narrative nonfiction stories. Please send pitches and proposals. We request two weeks to review all submissions.

What we are looking for:

“Narrative nonfiction” can mean different things to different people, but for us it means that characters and story come first. (The best way to understand our approach is to read some of our award-winning pieces.) We are looking for stories with a beginning, middle, and end, stories you can’t stop reading because you can’t wait to see what happens next. Our pieces can be historical or current; they can be about serious social issues or unexpected pop culture developments; they can be driven by investigative reporting or first-person experiences. We’re looking for stories that need to be longer than a typical magazine article, anywhere from 8,000 to 30,000 words. That means they feature extensive reporting and deep research, and the conflict and surprise to carry a reader through to the last word.

Most of our stories are told primarily in text, but we’ve also won awards for our documentary video pieces. We run photography and audio stories as well, as long as they fit the criteria above.

What we are not looking for:

Profiles of well-known figures or profiles that lack a narrative arc, news dispatches or analyses, think pieces, trend pieces, reviews, round-ups on a subject, or any other topic-driven story.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

 [This opportunity was posted 30+ days ago and has expired.]