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Blog / Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Frenemies


In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | August-September 2014: Frenemies

“Frenemies”: friends with fewer benefits. It’s often an apt term to describe our working lives, where polite interactions mask fierce competition. But it applies to other domains as well: from the love-hate relationships of siblings and lovers, to the tangled web of international relations (take, for example, longtime allies Germany and the US, recently in a bitter spat over American espionage). Yet having a frenemy is not necessarily a bad thing. Musical rivalries produce great songs (see the hit musical Beautiful). One-time political opponents sometimes become the most formidable of allies (see Bush v. Gore veterans/gay-marriage crusaders David Boies and Ted Olson).

In The Fray magazine is looking for profiles, essays, and photo essays that have something to say about friendly rivals, and rival friends. Tell us about the struggles that ensued, and the regrets and resolutions that followed. Tell us about battles between best friends, reluctant enemies, or best and worst selves. 

Please review our submissions guidelines and send a one-paragraph pitch to the appropriate section editor NO LATER THAN OCTOBER 1, 2014. You may attach a complete draft if you have one.

We also welcome submissions of news features, commentary, book and film reviews, art/photography, and videos on any other topics that relate to the magazine’s themes: understanding other people and cultures, encouraging empathy and compassion, and defying categories and conventions.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Blog / Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Resistance


In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | April 2014: Resistance

Ukraine. Venezuela. Thailand. The Arab Spring. We are living in a time of vibrant protest, captured and magnified by cellphone videos and Twitter feeds. On both the political right and left, grassroots movements have emerged everywhere—including America and Europe—to resist authority and overturn the establishment.

We want to hear your stories of resistance: from powerful mass movements to personal relationships. We are seeking profiles, personal essays, and photo essays of individuals and groups who have stood up to power—triumphantly or tragically, honorably or hypocritically. Describe the ways that people have organized and inspired each other to overcome tough odds. On a smaller level, tell us about how you or someone else fought back against domestic violence, bullying, a hostile work environment, or other kinds of intimidation. Importantly, show us how that single case has something to say about larger issues and broader struggles.

Please review our submissions guidelines and send a one-paragraph pitch to the appropriate section editor NO LATER THAN MAY 1, 2014. You may attach a complete draft if you have one.

We also welcome submissions of news features, commentary, book and film reviews, art/photography, and videos on any other topics that relate to the magazine’s themes: understanding other people and cultures, encouraging empathy and compassion, and defying categories and conventions.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Secrets

How does secrecy, even if well-intentioned, affect human relationships? To what extent does it undermine the credibility of government institutions? Does full transparency help or hurt us? In The Fray wants to know your secrets.


In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | July 2013: Secrets

The classified intelligence leaks by former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden threw a light on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. In response, the Obama administration has argued its methods have been legal, transparent, and successful in foiling dozens of terrorist plots.

To what extent does it undermine the credibility of government institutions? How does secrecy, even if well-intentioned, affect human relationships? Does full transparency help or hurt us?

In The Fray wants to know your secrets. This may be a photo essay on hidden places travelers could enjoy in your city or a narrative exploration of an underground community. You might tell us about a time you kept a relationship under wraps or hid a medical diagnosis. We also want to hear humorous accounts of keeping and learning secrets.

Please review our submissions guidelines and send a one-paragraph pitch or draft to the appropriate section editor NO LATER THAN JULY 31, 2013. Include three samples of your previous work (links are preferred).

We are open to submissions on any other topics that relate to the magazine’s themes: promoting global understanding and encouraging empathy.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors of In The Fray Magazine
submissions@inthefray.org

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Transience

In The Fray is seeking submissions on the theme of transience. The chaos of our lives can be difficult to reconcile, and it is hard to find comfort in knowing everything is in a constant state of flux. For some of us, the experience of transience is more apparent. It is a way of being — sometimes chosen, sometimes not — that defines us.


Note: In addition to the theme below, we welcome submissions on all topics. In particular, we are seeking photo essays on any subject matter.

In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | May 2013: Transience

In his essay, “On Transience,” Sigmund Freud relates a walk he once took through the countryside with a poet friend. This companion told Freud that he could not enjoy the natural beauty when he considered its impending doom. Freud found it incomprehensible that the transience of beauty should interfere with our enjoyment of it.

“A flower that blossoms only for a single night does not seem on that account less lovely,” he wrote.

The chaos of our lives can be difficult to reconcile, and it is hard to find comfort in knowing everything is in a constant state of flux. For some of us, the experience of transience is more apparent. It is a way of being — sometimes chosen, sometimes not — that defines us.

In The Fray is seeking submissions on the theme of transience. This might be a travelogue from a meaningful journey, an essay about migrant workers who see something new with each passing season, contemplations on how changes occur over time, or a humorous story about a short-lived job.

Please email submissions@inthefray.org with a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece — along with three links to your previous work — NO LATER THAN JUNE 30, 2013.

We are open to submissions on any other topics that relate to the magazine’s themes: promoting global understanding and encouraging empathy.

All contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submissions/.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors of In The Fray Magazine
submissions@inthefray.org

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Mental Health in Context

In The Fray seeks stories that bring to life the experiences of individuals as they address mental health issues in schools, at home, and in the workplace.


Note: In addition to the theme below, we welcome submissions on all topics. In particular, we are seeking photo essays on any subject matter.

In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | January 2013: Mental Health in Context

After the Newtown elementary school shooting in Connecticut, stories about mental health and gun violence abounded in the news. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one in four American adults lives with mental illness — and many people with serious mental health conditions are unable to access care. In many countries, the topic of mental health is still taboo, and adequate, respectful treatment is hard to find.

In The Fray is looking for original reportage, commentary, interviews, first-person narratives, and photo essays about mental health, broadly defined. Tell us about how mental health conditions or institutions affected you, your family members, or your friends. Send us stories that bring to life the experiences of individuals — educators, therapists, psychiatrists, employers, and parents — as they address mental health issues in schools, at home, and in the workplace.

Please email submissions@inthefray.org with a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece — along with three links to your previous work — NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 28, 2013.

We are open to submissions on any other topics that relate to the magazine’s themes: promoting global understanding and encouraging empathy and tolerance.

All contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submissions/.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors of In The Fray Magazine
submissions@inthefray.org

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Blog

Blogger Needed


We are looking for a blogger to write regularly for the magazine’s blog. For more details, click here.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Rivalries

This month, In The Fray wants your stories of rivalries. Tell us about the spirit of competition and how these experiences led to an unexpected revelation. Show us the ways that rivalries make people better — and the ways they make people worse.


In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | December 2012: Rivalries

Every one of us has had a rival at one point in our lives: siblings, classmates, coworkers, even strangers. At a national level, we’ve just witnessed a bitterly fought U.S. presidential election, but some of the most iconic rivalries have little to do with politics. Yankees and Red Sox. Microsoft and Apple. Vampires and werewolves. Leno and Letterman.

This month, In The Fray wants your stories of rivalries. Tell us about the spirit of competition and how these experiences led to an unexpected revelation. Show us the ways that rivalries make people better — and the ways they make people worse. As usual, we are open to stories that deal with the topic broadly construed, and in a variety of approaches: profiles, interviews, reportage, personal essays, op-eds, travel writing, photo essays, artwork, videos, multimedia projects, and review essays of books, film, music, and art.

If interested, please email submissions@inthefray.org with a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece as soon as possible — along with three links to your previous work — NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 15, 2012. All contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submit.

We are also looking for artists, photographers, and writers who can take care of specific assignments, including book and film reviews, interviews, and accompanying photos and artwork. If interested, please follow the instructions at the bottom of http://inthefray.org/submit to join our contributors’ mailing list.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors of In The Fray Magazine
submissions@inthefray.org

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Corruption

Tell us the ways that dishonesty and greed undermine the proper workings of organizations, from Congress to corporations, from regulations to relationships. Is corruption an inevitable human tendency or a curable condition?


In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | June 2012: Corruption

Corruption is an inevitable part of political life, in countries rich and poor. In India, a Transparency International study finds that 55 percent of citizens have had firsthand experience with bribing government officials. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, storeowners pay police officers protection money to “watch over” their shops. And in the United States, corruption has become a high, if hidden, art, with politicians and lobbyists conspiring to rewrite the rules to grant special interest groups an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

But in recent years, advancing technology and increased public awareness have changed the ways that corruption is tackled, exposed, and ultimately punished. In India, almost a quarter of the country’s members of parliament were recently facing criminal corruption charges, and a strong case can be made that the evolving digital news environment is responsible for their undoing. Websites like Wikileaks have made it easier for whistleblowers to bring misdeeds to light — while also weakening the secrecy that governments argue is necessary for their diplomacy and strategizing.

This month, In The Fray wants your stories of corruption — political and otherwise. Tell us the ways that dishonesty and greed undermine the proper workings of organizations, from Congress to corporations, from regulations to relationships. Is corruption an inevitable human tendency or a curable condition? As usual, we are open to stories that deal with the topic broadly construed, and in a variety of approaches: profiles, interviews, reportage, personal essays, op-eds, travel writing, photo essays, artwork, videos, multimedia projects, and review essays of books, film, music, and art.

If interested, please email submissions@inthefray.org with a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece as soon as possible — along with three links to your previous work — NO LATER THAN JULY 1, 2012. All contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submit.

We are also looking for artists, photographers, and writers, who can take care of specific assignments, including interviews, book and film reviews, and accompanying photos and artwork. If interested, please follow the instructions at the bottom of http://inthefray.org/submit to join our contributors’ mailing list.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors of In The Fray Magazine
submissions@inthefray.org

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
Fernando Bermudez with his son, Fernando, age 5. Mr. Bermudez finds his sons room a respite from daily stressors.
Blog / Political Prose

Lost Decades


This week the magazine is featuring a trio of articles about prisons, real and psychological. In Freed, but Scarred, Francesca Crozier-Fitzgerald describes the post-prison lives of three men who spent, among them, forty-three years in New York penitentiaries for crimes they did not commit. After proving their innocence, Jeffrey Deskovic, Kian Khatibi, and Fernando Bermudez have returned to a changed world of broken relationships and lost identities, struggling to find the assistance and understanding they need to overcome their pasts. In an accompanying photo essay, Life after Innocence, Dana Ullman presents intimate portraits of the three men and their families, still scarred by absences and regrets.

Finally, in Across Oceans, Haunted by Memories, Susan M. Lee reviews the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong, a tale of two Vietnamese families flung across the globe, chased by their war-era remembrances of traumas endured and wrongs perpetrated — at times, on each other. This debut novel by Aimee Phan (disclosure: Phan is a friend) reminds us of the tensions inherent in our strivings to remember the past, and yet overcome it — to seek truth, and yet find peace.

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Debt

Tell us your stories of a debt that was held, paid, or forgotten. Review a book or film that says something meaningful about those of us who owe money or something more. Send us interviews, profiles, and photos of people and groups that bring new meaning to the age-old relationship between debtor and creditor.


In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | March 2012: Debt

Note: This month we are looking in particular for photo essays. Please email us at submissions@inthefray.org if you are a photographer and have work to submit or ideas for a potential project.

Scan a recent headline and there is something about debt: budget deficits, toxic mortgages, leveraged buyouts. Lending greases the gears of our economic machine. In The Fray wants to look at “debt” in all its senses, financial and otherwise. Debts in our relationships, debts in our culture. The perpetual indebtedness of modern life, and the obligations passed down through generations. Forgiveness of debts — those of a person, or a country. Tell us your stories of a debt that was held, paid, or forgotten. Review a book or film that says something meaningful about those of us who owe money or something more. Send us interviews, profiles, and photos of people and groups that bring new meaning to the age-old relationship between debtor and creditor.

We are currently accepting pitches for articles that relate to this theme or more generally to the magazine’s mission of understanding other people and encouraging empathy and tolerance. We are looking for profiles, interviews, reportage, personal essays, op-eds, travel writing, photo essays, artwork, videos, multimedia projects, and review essays of books, film, music, and art. If interested, please email submissions@inthefray.org with a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece as soon as possible — along with three links to your previous work — NO LATER THAN APRIL 8, 2012. All contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submit.

We are also looking for writers, photographers, and artists who can take care of specific assignments, including interviews, book and film reviews, and accompanying photos and artwork. If interested, please follow the instructions at the bottom of http://inthefray.org/submit to join our contributors mailing list.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Editors of In The Fray Magazine
submissions@inthefray.org

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
A man brings a spare bike home from the repair shop in Candelaria, a town on the road from San Diego de los Baños. October 1999. (Alastair Smith)
Blog / Political Prose

The End of the Road


A man on a bike carries another bike in Cuba's western countryside
Alone in the Forest, by Lita Wong. (Alastair Smith)

Hitchhiking has become an anachronism in many parts of the world, along with the trust of strangers that makes it possible, but in The Road Less Traveled, Lita Wong hitches her way through rural Cuba and finds herself relying in unexpected ways on the kindness and decency of the people she meets on the road. (Wong’s personal essay is a companion piece to Alone in the Forest, previously published in the magazine.)

Also check out Havel: An Authentic Life, Jan Vihan‘s essay on the plays of Vaclav Havel, the Czech statesman, revolutionary, and writer who died at the end of last year. Havel’s legacy lies not just in his life’s work to overthrow communism and foster democracy, Vihan writes, but also in his many plays and writings, which have much to say — to readers of any language — about the meaning and challenge of living a life of truth and love.

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Blog

Archives


We have added a link to our old site in the sidebar, so that readers have access again to the stories we published between 2001 and 2010. We hope to add the entire collection of past stories to the new site eventually, as soon as our volunteer staff finds the time. Thanks for bearing with us.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also: