We are currently open for pitches/submissions to our print magazine, find out more here.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: DISPATCHES FROM STUDENT ENCAMPMENTS FOR PALESTINE
Since Skin Deep started as a student magazine in 2014, we have published stories about – and directly participated in – various protests in the movement for racial justice, from Rhodes Must Fall and Black Lives Matter to the ongoing protests for Palestine. Watching the recent student encampments and occupations for Palestine emerging across the US and UK over the past few weeks reminded us of an article in our second issue: an anonymous communiqué from #OccupySLU, where protesters occupied St Louis University in Missouri as part of months-long protests following the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson. In it, the author writes as if from a new land they have discovered: the land of white people, a place populated by smiling liberals who “say obvious things about the weather” even as they “insist that the destruction of property is somehow comparable to the murder of a human being with brown skin.” It ends with a call for others to “immediately start using your bodies to open passages” to other worlds.
Inspired by this article, we want to publish dispatches from students occupying their institutions right now to call for an end to the genocide. We don’t want the press release though; we are looking for creative ways of capturing the spirit of the occupation you’re a part of – the emotion of it, the experience of it – as well as the important facts of your occupation, such as the details of the university’s complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide, and your demands. Archiving for the movement is an important part of our mission as a cultural organisation, so we’re looking for articles that will speak through time to future moments like this, the way the anonymous contributors of #OccupySLU are speaking to us now from a decade ago. We are committed to giving these stories a home not just for posterity, but to amplify and keep up momentum right now, until Palestine is free.
As in all our work, we seek to prioritise accounts from those with lived experience of what’s being written about – in this case, Palestinian students, Muslim students, and racialised students. We refer to Sins Invalid’s second principle of disability justice, ‘leadership of those most impacted’: “When we talk about ableism, racism, sexism & transmisogyny, colonization, police violence, etc., we are not looking to academics and experts to tell us what’s what —we are lifting up, listening to, reading, following, and highlighting the perspectives of those who are most impacted by the systems we fght against. By centering the leadership of those most impacted, we keep ourselves grounded in real-world problems and find creative strategies for resistance.”
Fee: £150
Word count: 1000
Email georgie @ skin deep mag . com
Important note: we prioritise accounts from those with relevant lived experience of the issues being written about – in this case Palestinians, Muslims and racialised people. We welcome co-written pieces. You are welcome to remain anonymous, or to be credited as a group name (e.g. [University Name] Action for Palestine).
Read some of our previous work about Palestine:
- PALESTINE: WAYS OF BEING (editorial season)
- Creatives for Palestine: A call to our community
- From Palestine to South Korea: Lessons in anti-imperialism
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Please note that we are not accepting other online editorial pitches at this time. Please check back on this page, or on our socials, for updates. (Updated July 2024)
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Got something to share? You can pitch or submit writing and other creative work to be published on our online space.
We pay £150-£250 per piece, depending on the scale and scope of the work.
This page lays out important information for contributors, please read it before emailing us at the addresses below.
We’re excited to hear from you.
Please note, there is a separate process for submitting to the print magazine. Sign up to our monthly newsletter to be notified when submissions open for the next print issue.
- What we’re looking for
- How to write a good pitch
- Where to send your pitch or submission
- Our editorial process
- FAQs
- What we’re looking for
Have a look at what we publish to get a sense of our style, our interests, our values.
We publish slower work, less reactive to the short news cycle but not blind to it.
We like stories that go in, below the surface to the structure.
We are a space for cultural production in the name of racial justice – we’re interested in work that explores the relationship between creativity and activism.
Institutionally racist corporate media fixates on one-dimensional narratives of crisis and suffering for Black and POC communities – we don’t. We want the full spectrum of emotion and experience.
We are format/medium agnostic – we publish writing, photography, video, illustration; features, interviews, explainers, analysis; fiction, non-fiction, or a hybrid of the two.
We want your ideas to be as expansive as possible. What have you always wanted to explore and create?
- How to write a good pitch
Keep it brief – three to four paragraphs max.Pitch stories, not topics. The idea can be nascent or fully developed, as long as the story is clear and strong. It helps to give us a potential headline or two.
What’s amazing about this story? Highlight that particular something that makes it sing – a character, a location, a detail, something surprising, something joyful, something powerful.Explain how your piece fits with the publication. Why us?Let us know briefly about the background/experience that makes you confident in your ability to do the assignment.(If you’re a writer) the pitch is a demonstration of your writing, so speak with your own voice – it shouldn’t be overly formal.
Start the email subject line with ‘Pitch’ or ‘Submission’. If you want to pitch a Skin Deep Meets interview (written or video), include that in the subject line too.
- Where to send your pitch or submission
Writing goes to submissions@skindeepmag.com
Illustration, photography, video and other multimedia goes to creative@skindeepmag.com
- Our editorial process
Once you’ve emailed us, we’ll try to get back to you as soon as we can. We are a small team, so please bear with us.
If we select your pitch or submission, congratulations! We are excited to work with you.
Editing is a collaboration. As editors, we promise to respect your experience and expertise, to give your work the time and care it deserves, and to leave our egos at the door. We ask that you do the same.
As we’re a small team, and since we take great care to edit and curate your work in collaboration with you, be aware that it might take a little longer to publish than other outlets.
We usually commission original illustrations to accompany written pieces, and we invite writers to be part of that process if they’re interested.
- FAQs
I’m not based in the UK, can I contribute?
Yes! We are always keen to publish work from voices outside the UK and US contexts. Our audience and network of creatives is global – we love to hear stories from all over the world.
Do you publish promotional content?
We have done this in the past on a project by project basis. If you think your content aligns with our mission, send an email. But generally, we don’t promote people’s businesses, you can’t buy advertising space on the website, and we don’t do sponsored posts on social media.
How much do you pay contributors?
We pay between £150 and £250 per published piece or collection (of photographs, for example). The precise fee we offer on that scale will be based on the amount of work we estimate will be/was involved in delivering the piece. An 800-word opinion piece will be towards the lower end – as will any work that has already been published elsewhere, or any work you were financially supported to make (with a grant, for example). An original 2,000-word feature including multiple interviews and lengthy research will be towards the higher end.
Is the fee negotiable?
We will not go below £150, nor can we afford to go above £250 – we want to distribute our limited financial resources as widely and fairly as we can. Within that, we aim to pay you fairly based on the amount of work involved, but it is not an exact science. Feel free to ask us how we arrived at a point on the scale, and if you think we have misjudged the amount of work and therefore the fee, let’s discuss it. We ask that you come to those conversations knowing that unlike a lot of places, we are not trying to pay you as little as possible. Your work, your time and your knowledge are valuable.
What’s the word limit for written pieces?
2,000 words is the absolute limit, but we prefer pieces around 1,200 words.
Can I submit something that has already been published elsewhere?
We usually don’t republish work already available elsewhere, although there are exceptions. For example, if your work was published on a platform with an audience that doesn’t overlap with ours, then there may be a benefit to bringing it to a new audience.
If I publish work on Skin Deep, can I then publish it elsewhere?
We won’t take ownership of your work away from you. We do ask that if any work we published first is republished somewhere else, it should include the line “Originally published on Skin Deep” with a link to the piece on Skin Deep. We put a lot of work into what we do as editors, curators and designers, and we would appreciate the credit.
I emailed a pitch/submission ages ago and haven’t heard back, what do I do?
We try to respond to all pitches and submissions in good time, but we are a small team. Please bear with us. If you don’t hear back in two weeks, give us a nudge.
I want to include images or video in my submission, is that ok?
If you want us to include particular images or videos in your piece, you must be the copyright holder or have permission from the copyright holder to publish the material on Skin Deep (we will ask for some proof of that permission).
Can I link to sources in my piece?
We actively encourage crediting the work of others, so if you’re using ideas and information that aren’t your own, you should absolutely link to external sources. Citation is feminist memory.
I am a white person, can I contribute work to Skin Deep?
Welcome! As long as your work supports our mission, you can pitch or submit it. We will always prioritise the work of Black people and POC, so you must be happy to stand near the back of the queue. Let us know if you would like to donate your fee so it can be used for a Black or POC contributor instead.