Rows of post office boxes. Submit to Edge Effects.

Submissions

We’re delighted that you’re interested in publishing with Edge Effects. Our editorial board invites submissions from anyone interested in bringing interdisciplinary environmental work to a public audience. We are committed to highlighting work by graduate students, practitioners, contingent faculty, and early career scholars. We especially welcome contributions by People of Color, Black and Indigenous people, and those with underrepresented genders, including trans men, women (both cis and trans), and nonbinary, gender fluid, and two-spirit individuals. 

What do we publish?

We publish a wide variety of content about environment and society, from a range of approaches. True to the ecological concept from which we draw our name, we’re most excited by what takes place at the edges: where the sciences meet with the humanities, activism with art, scholarship with praxis, and where narrated pasts collide with imagined futures.

We’re currently accepting critical essays written for a general audience (~2000 words), commentaries on current events, reviews of new books/games/television/film, reflective fieldnotes essays (~1000–2000 words), and exhibits (photo essays, graphic essays, multimedia pieces, and other creative forms).

We generally prefer not to republish writing that’s previously appeared in print or online. We are open to simultaneous submissions; please just let us know if the piece is accepted elsewhere.

How to submit to Edge Effects ?

For general submissions, we prefer but do not require full drafts. While we are excited to work with you to develop your ideas and refine your writing, we will only accept pitches that elaborate both your ideas and how you plan to present them.

If you have a full draft available for us to review, we ask that you also send a short paragraph detailing:

  • Why your piece would be a good fit for Edge Effects, in terms of both content and style. In particular, you should convey how you have crafted your piece for a broad, public audience interested in the intersections of culture, history, and environment;
  • Any professional or biographical information relevant to the content of the piece, as well as a brief explanation of any affiliations or financial ties you have to organizations your piece would feature;
  • A sense of your schedule, including any constraints on your availability to work on revisions.

If you do not yet have a completed draft, we ask that you provide the following:

  • A 400-600 word summary and outline of the post, including its format and argument or angle;
  • Why you think your piece would be a good fit for Edge Effects, in terms of both content and style. You should convey how you will communicate your ideas effectively to a broad, public audience interested in the intersections of culture, history, and environment;
  • Any professional or biographical information relevant to the content of the piece, as well as a brief explanation of any affiliations or financial ties you have to organizations your piece would feature;
  • A sense of your schedule, including when we could reasonably expect a complete first draft and any constraints on your availability to work on revisions.

If you are interested in reviewing a new scholarly monograph or trade nonfiction book, please send the book title, a short bio, and a brief explanation (~250 words) of why you’d like to review it for Edge Effects. Visit our Reviews page for more information.

All materials and inquiries should be sent to the managing editor at edgeeffects@nelson.wisc.edu. We aim to respond to pitches within three weeks. If you don’t hear from us within four weeks, we welcome follow-up.

Our editorial process

For every post on Edge Effects, an editorial team works directly with the author(s) throughout a rigorous editorial process. Authors can expect editorial feedback to include global comments and suggestions, as well as detailed line edits in the spirit of improving clarity while respecting your voice(s).

We are dedicated to working closely with authors to consider carefully every post we take on, whether solicited by us or pitched by the author. However, publication is conditional on meeting our editorial standards and falling within our tonal and content scope. If we feel that a piece does not do this, we may reject it, even after the editorial process has begun.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Featured Image: Photo of post office boxes. Photo by Tim Evans, 2016.