Below are some tips for how to pitch Contingent Magazine. You can pitch us here.
This is a magazine for a general audience, not a peer-reviewed journal. You’re writing a pitch, not a conference proposal. Write this as if you’re writing for a friend or family member, rather than for an academic advisor or the head of a search committee.
We encourage you to send us a pitch rather than a complete draft. Please use the pitch manager on our Pitch Us page, rather than emailing us directly. It helps us keep track of things!
The pitch itself should be one or two paragraphs. Tell us briefly what the story is, what your argument is, and what sorts of sources you’d use. (Though we’re not an academic journal, we still expect our authors to engage with the relevant primary and secondary source material). It never hurts to give us a juicy anecdote that you think will hook potential readers. Contingent emphasizes history as a process, not a product, so don’t be afraid to use “I” in your pitch. It can also be useful to frame a pitch around how you became interested in this story or idea—is this a rabbit hole you fell down while working on something else? A person whose life and experiences resonated with your own? An unidentifiable object you came across? And always make sure you think about the hook. What’s going to grab your audience and make them want to know more? We’re your first audience–hook us!
At the end of the pitch, tell us a little bit about yourself. We don’t need a CV, but tell us your relevant background and experience. If possible, provide a few links to other things you’ve written or created, especially for a general audience. If you haven’t been published before, you could even attach a research paper or something like that. Don’t worry, we’re not going to overly scrutinize your sample; we just want to get a sense of your writing style.
In your pitch, tell us which section you’d envision this story fitting in. If you’re not sure which section your pitch is right for, that’s okay; we welcome genre-bending and/or multimedia projects, from photo essays to collages to poetry to short films. We’ll find the right place for it.