MAY 2026: SURVIVING THE APOCALYPSE

Nonfiction Guidelines

Theme Overview

Essays examining our cultural obsession with the end of the world—why we imagine it, what those imaginings reveal about us, and what apocalyptic fiction actually teaches (or fails to teach) about survival and human nature.

What We're Looking For

  • Analysis of apocalyptic fiction across eras (what anxieties does each reflect?)
  • Essays on the politics of survival narratives (who gets to survive? who's expendable?)
  • Profiles of authors working in post-apocalyptic fiction
  • The prepper movement and its relationship to apocalyptic storytelling
  • Climate fiction and the "slow apocalypse" in contemporary literature
  • What disaster fiction gets wrong about actual human behavior in crisis

Strong Pitches Will

  • Connect genre analysis to real-world anxieties or events
  • Examine specific texts closely rather than surveying broadly
  • Challenge comfortable assumptions about who "deserves" to survive
  • Engage with the ethics of apocalypse fantasy

We're Not Looking For

  • Survival gear recommendations or "what I learned from preppers"
  • Generic "why we love disaster movies" pieces
  • Zombie thinkpieces (unless genuinely original)
  • Apocalypse as metaphor without examining actual apocalyptic narratives

Specs

  • 1,500–3,000 words
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FEATURE/COMMENTARY SUBMISSION – MAY – [Your Title]

JUNE 2026: NO MAN'S LAND

Nonfiction Guidelines | PRINT ISSUE

Theme Overview

Essays exploring the Western genre, frontier mythology, and the cultural meaning of lawless spaces—in fiction and in the American imagination.

What We're Looking For

  • Analysis of the Western's evolution from pulp to revisionism to whatever comes next
  • Essays on frontier mythology and its hold on American identity
  • Profiles of Western authors (literary, pulp, or contemporary)
  • The neo-Western in film and television (what keeps the genre alive?)
  • Border narratives and contemporary "frontier" spaces
  • The Western outside America (Australian outback, Siberian frontier, space)

Strong Pitches Will

  • Engage with specific texts, authors, or films rather than abstractly discussing "the Western"
  • Grapple with the genre's history without dismissing it
  • Connect frontier mythology to contemporary politics or culture
  • Examine what the Western offers that other genres don't

We're Not Looking For

  • "The Western is dead/the Western is back" trend pieces
  • Uncritical nostalgia for the genre's golden age
  • Takedowns that refuse to engage with why the Western endures
  • Lists of "best Westerns" without analytical framework

Specs

  • 1,500–3,000 words
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FEATURE SUBMISSION – JUNE PRINT – [Your Title]

JULY 2026: CULTS & TRUE BELIEVERS

Nonfiction Guidelines

Theme Overview

Essays examining why people believe, how groups capture minds, and what cult dynamics reveal about human psychology and social structures.

What We're Looking For

  • Analysis of cult narratives in fiction, documentary, and memoir
  • Essays on the psychology of high-control groups and charismatic authority
  • Profiles of authors writing about cults, radicalization, or true belief
  • The "cult" label: who gets it, who doesn't, and why it matters
  • Deprogramming, recovery, and life after belief
  • Corporate, political, or online spaces that exhibit cult dynamics

Strong Pitches Will

  • Avoid both sensationalism and false equivalence
  • Examine specific groups or texts rather than "cults in general"
  • Grapple with why intelligent people join and stay
  • Explore the line between devotion and delusion

We're Not Looking For

  • "Why people join cults" explainers that stay surface-level
  • Pieces that treat all intense group loyalty as equivalent to cults
  • Survivor narratives without analytical framework
  • Mockery that refuses to take belief seriously

Specs

  • 1,500–3,000 words
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FEATURE SUBMISSION – JULY – [Your Title]

AUGUST 2026: FORBIDDEN RELATIONSHIPS

Nonfiction Guidelines

Theme Overview

Essays exploring transgressive desire in fiction and culture—why forbidden love captivates us, what these narratives reveal about social boundaries, and how the "forbidden" shifts across time and place.

What We're Looking For

  • Analysis of forbidden love narratives in literature and film
  • Essays on how "taboo" is constructed and who benefits from the boundaries
  • Profiles of authors who write transgressive romance or erotic fiction
  • The evolution of what's "forbidden" (interracial, queer, interfaith—once scandalous, now mainstream)
  • Power dynamics in fictional relationships and reader complicity
  • The ethics of transgression in fiction (what should be off-limits, if anything?)

Strong Pitches Will

  • Engage with specific texts rather than abstract discussions of "forbidden love"
  • Examine why certain transgressions appeal to readers and others repel
  • Grapple with the erotics of power imbalance without moralizing
  • Connect fictional transgressions to real social structures

We're Not Looking For

  • Romance genre surveys without critical edge
  • Pieces that treat all taboo-breaking as equally subversive
  • Moralistic hand-wringing about "problematic" fiction
  • Essays that refuse to engage with why transgression is appealing

Specs

  • 1,500–3,000 words
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FEATURE SUBMISSION – AUGUST – [Your Title]