100 Interviews Is Now Taking Submissions

Monday, October 10, 2011

100 Interviews Is Now Taking Submissions

HERE ARE SOME NOTES ON THAT:

The focus of the new 100 Interviews is people. Your submission should be a piece about people. What that means is broad, open-ended and mainly up to you.

What I want: Interviews, articles, personal essays, poems, photos, short stories, Q&As, funny pieces, creative lists, drawings, ideas for columns, etc.

I’m looking for anything that showcases an undiscovered or under-appreciated aspect of humanity. By the time I’m done reading your piece, I want to have learned something about people.

That’s right. The word “interviews” in the title is now a bit metaphorical. What you submit does not have to be a copy of the previous 100 Interviews style though it can be similar if you believe that’s the best way to convey the subject.

100 Interviews is also about the person doing the writing. I want a lot of your personality to shine through in the piece you submit.

If your best friend is a tight-rope walker, I want to know why she loves what she does. If you interview an author you absolutely love, I want to know what they mean to you. I want to know if someone on the subway platform changed your life, why the forensic scientist enjoys working murder cases, how the homeless person ended up at the shelter, what drives the filmmaker to keep making movies. I want to know about your influences, your environments, your passions. If you want to write about a type of person (like feminists or vegans or roller derby enthusiasts), I’d love to see it. If you want to write about yourself, go for it.

If your piece explores the idea of personhood, 100 Interviews is the place for it.

Every person has a story and every person is important. Equal precedence will be given to a piece on someone with notoriety and to a piece on the average person. For example, if you interview R.L. Stine, the piece will run equal with an exploration of why your high school science teacher made you want to be a chemist.

Teach us all something about people!

General Guidelines

100 Interviews accepts primarily non-fiction. However, fiction can be pitched. I’m mostly interested in character studies and stories that focus on individuals. Please state in the subject line that the piece is fiction.

If you submit photos, please provide a caption of about 50 words describing it. Be creative! Be mysterious! Be cool! Don’t upload photos you don’t have the rights to.

Eventually, I’d like to be able to take any length of writing. For now, 400 to 1,500 words should be your guideline.

Suggest a headline for your story. If you want to provide a photo too, I will love you forever. Photos should be at least 555px × 228px. If you’re using a Creative Commons image, make sure to provide the photographer’s name and the original source. If you don’t want to submit a photo, that’s cool too. I’d love it if you took the photo to go with your own story. That’d be neat as hell.

Everything you submit belongs to you, however 100 Interviews reserves the right to use the piece for promotional purposes such as linking on other sites and in advertisements.

Submit here or via email.