Unsolicited submissions are currently closed. We appreciate your interest in contributing to the site, and will update this page when submissions re-open. Thank you!
What we’re looking for:
Hazlitt accepts robust queries for works of original journalism, investigative features, international reporting, profiles, essays and humour pieces. We are not currently accepting unsolicited fiction and will update this page when we re-open submissions. If there’s one unifying trait among the best Hazlitt pieces, it’s that their writers are clearly passionate about them—what’s the story you’ve always wanted to tell, that only you can? Please note that we do not accept completed drafts as pitches for non-fiction work.
It’s helpful for us if you can include a proposed word count.
What We’re Not Looking For:
-We do not publish reviews.
-We no longer use Submittable.
-We do not accept completed drafts as pitches for non-fiction work.
We Get a Lot of Questions About What Makes a Great Hazlitt Piece:
- Voice/prose: Show us your writing is evocative. Show being the operative word.
- A strong, thoughtful through-line: Make us feel confident that you can bring this thing home.
‑ Research: You’ll need to do some—probably a lot. Be clear about sources, such as potential interview subjects and other resources. Even the most personal of essays shouldn’t be entirely insular—nothing happens in a vacuum, and context and awareness of the world around you is critical.
‑ Scenes/characters.
‑ The Turn: A strong piece has a moment that makes you go, “huh.” Call it the turn, or the other shoe, or the a‑ha moment, but there’s a point in the story where the writer gives you something you weren’t expecting.
And We Get a Lot of Questions About What to Avoid:
- Overly academic prose. Eliminate jargon and buzzwords.
‑ A diary entry. Even if you’re pitching a personal essay or relying heavily on personal elements, have an answer to this question: what does my experience mean/say in a wider cultural context? Always strive to widen the scope. As Matthew Gavin Frank writes in the introduction to The Mad Feast, essays are “a series of attempts, as opposed to a presumption of certainty. These pieces grapple towards a larger, nebulous truth that might exist beyond or in spite of me, but for which, in order to approach it…I needed to engage various aspects of myself—via various lenses—as tools.”
‑ Aggregation: A good essay pushes the conversation forward.
And finally:
We will respond to every pitch we’re sent, but we can’t confirm receipt of the pitch. You will hear from us whether it’s yes or no, though, we promise.
If you’re thinking of pitching to us, start here:
A Journey to the Medical Netherworld by Alison Motluk
Captcha by Naomi Skwarna
Fear and Trembling in Las Vegas by Tara Isabella Burton
Know Your History, Know Your Greatness by Eternity Martis
Low Stakes Forever by Nicholas Hune-Brown
Surviving the Love Bomb by Kathleen Hale
Swole Without a Goal by Anshuman Iddamsetty
Test of Loyalty by Sam Alden
That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore by Zachary Lipez
Winona, Forever by Soraya Roberts
Hazlitt submissions are currently closed. We appreciate your interest in contributing to the site, and will update this page when submissions re-open. Thank you!