Guest Writer Submissions

We invite guest writers to pitch article ideas to tD’s Editorial Team. We are particularly interested in engaging with writers who are new to publication and those who are connected to the Philadelphia Dance Community—both writers who live in & around Philly.

Please note that thINKingDANCE (tD) is committed to supporting our roster of writers through equitable pay, editorial support, education efforts, and opportunities for growth within the organization. As such, we have limited capacity for pieces written by guests.

It is important that our team gets to know you and your writing before we make a final decision to move forward with a pitched article. After you submit your proposal, an editorial board member will reach out to help you further shape your pitch to clarify your goals for the article and structure your ideas to align with our publication goals at tD. This will also serve as an early opportunity to engage with the tD editing process, which is dialogic, conversational, and includes a back-and-forth between the writer and editor. Once the guest writer has co-shaped the pitch with a tD editor, the editorial board will decide whether to proceed with crafting and editing the article itself. If the article isn’t the right fit for tD, the writer will exit the process with a polished pitch ready for submission to other publications. For a sample pitch to tD, click here.

Once the editorial board approves a pitch, the writer will receive a Guest Writer Packet, which includes a congratulations letter, expectations for all tD writers, instructions for writing and formatting the final article, a guest writer contract, and contact information for our guest writer liaison.

What we are looking for from guest-written pieces:

• Alignment with our mission statement
• Thoughtful pieces that provide a perspective or address a topic that fills a gap in our staff-generated coverage (please spend some time with our published material)
• A clear connection to the Philadelphia dance community (not needed for every guest piece, but encouraged)
• Work that has yet to be published

Payment for Guest Writers:

Guest writers are paid a standard fee of $75 per article. If the editorial board agrees that a particular piece is unfit for publication at any point in the editing process, beginning with the submission of a writer’s first full draft after their pitch has been officially accepted, the guest writer will be compensated with a kill fee of $25.

How to pitch an article as a non-tD writer:

For more information on how coverage is determined at tD, look at What We Publish, How We Do It, and Why.

• Send a detailed pitch (requirements listed below) or a complete draft of your article, as well as a brief explanation of why you think it would be a valuable addition to tD, to editor@thinkingdance.net
   
• Pitches should include the following:
  • An outline detailing the subject matter of your proposed article
  • Information on what perspective you can bring to that topic
  • Reasons why you think your piece would be a good fit for tD
  • A sample of your previous writing (if available)

Types of Articles
 

Here is an at-a-glance description of the different types of articles we publish.

• Reviews

  • Reviews make up the bulk of our published articles at tD. For a review, a writer views a performance, writes a critical response, and goes through our usual two-tiered process.

• Interviews

  • A tD writer meets with a subject (or subjects) and interviews them– in person, over the phone or Zoom, or (if necessary) over email. The writer then edits the interview and goes through our usual 2-tiered process.

• Book Reviews

  • Like a review, but for a book! It is similar in process to a review, but reading the book replaces seeing the performance.

• Think pieces

  • thINK pieces are more wide-ranging articles like an op ed or a “from the studio” piece. Often, the writer pitches an idea that connects to multiple artists or events. The writer may then go through a process with an editorial board member to hone that idea before writing a draft and going through the two-tiered editing process

• Group reviews & Crowd-sourced articles

  • Occasionally, tD writers will see a performance in a group and publish a group response. Each writer submits a short response (100-200 words), which our editors then compile and edit.
  • We use a similar process for Write Back Atchas, a live post-show event where audience members write a short response, which the writer/facilitator then edits and publishes on the site.
  • We have used this process for other articles involving multiple authors.

• News stories

  • News stories may inform our readers about tD (for example, changes in leadership or new partnerships) or the greater performance world.
• This list is ever-evolving! We have published photo essays, poems, and other experimental forms, so please do not feel constrained by the types of articles mentioned here.