The Stake welcomes pitches and submissions from writers on a variety of topics related to pop culture, including movies, TV, books, comics, games, media, and issues of social justice in pop culture.
Submissions:
The Stake is only open to submissions for entries in our recurring review/analysis series. Length of submissions should generally fall somewhere in the 750-2000 word range. Please read representative samples of each series before you submit a piece for that series.
Send submissions to thestake [dot] org [at] gmail [dot] com, with the subject line “Submission: [Series name]: [Submission title]” and the body of the submission pasted into the email body. We will not open attachments.
Reviews: Reviews of new or fairly recent movies, books, comics, and video games.
Examples—Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, Comics Review: Pretty Deadly
Falling for…: Reviews of TV series both new and old, focusing on the experience of trying and falling for or getting hooked on a show. Reviews may survey the pleasures of a given TV series, focus on the one episode that hooked you, or anything in between, but should use “Falling for [name of show]” as the overall conceit.
Examples—Falling for Scandal, Falling for Dr. Who, Falling for Sleepy Hollow
The Backlist: Considerations of past genre books that are influential in their genre, from true classics to modern masterpieces to undiscovered gems. We welcome submissions on all kinds of books, but here’s a list of writers to get you started: Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke, Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, PKD, Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, Walter Moseley, Sara Paretsky.
Examples—Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Beyond Horror: Considerations of films that are scary, unsettling, or horrifying in some way—yet lie just outside the bounds of the horror genre. Ideal submissions will combine the characteristics of a review, analysis, and consideration of a given film’s place within a filmmaker’s ouevre, within the horror genre, or within the filmic tradition.
Examples—Night of the Hunter, The White Ribbon, Blue Velvet
Backwoods Netflix: Reviews of Netflix’s back catalog, with preference given to the obscure, the weird, the offbeat, the lesser-known.
Examples—Resolution
Pitches
For all other topics, please send a pitch rather than a submission. Send pitches to thestake [dot] org [at] gmail [dot] com, with the subject line “Pitch: [Title of proposed article]“.
All pitches must contain the following information: Title of proposed article, subject matter, links to writing samples (if relevant).
No attachments, please.
