Daily Gullet submission guidelines

[Daily Gullet Staff]

Submission guidelines for the Daily Gullet

We want the Daily Gullet, the literary journal of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, to be the first place readers go for the freshest, sharpest and most savory food writing on the internet -- or in any medium.

Our articles should jump off the screen: provocative, instructive and, of course, devoted to all things gastronomic. Here’s a short list of subjects we’re looking for:

• Fact pieces about food science and technology; food history; food geography; food politics; and the food business.
  
• Opinion, as long as it’s lucid, well-written opinion, about food-related topics.
  
• Travel pieces about food and culture (not day spas and room rates) that provide insight about how the world eats and thinks.
  
• Food and cooking pieces that we won’t see in the Wednesday Food Section of your local daily, but should.
  
• Food-oriented fiction.
  
• Memoirs, if you know that your memories will be interesting to a wider audience than your grandchildren.
  

That’s the short list -- we’ll be delighted to read great food writing on any original subject. (Two subjects that don’t interest us are straight restaurant reviews and book reviews).

But it must be original. If you’ve posted it in a blog, or anywhere on the internet, we don’t want it. If it’s appeared in print, we don’t want it. The eGullet Society is volunteer-staffed and non-profit, so we don’t have a crack army of dedicated researchers. We have to rely a lot on trust -- we will rarely be able to track down source material. We will not tolerate abuse of this trust.

And it must be well-written. For writers both aspiring and professional, the Daily Gullet provides an unparalleled audience for your best stuff. In the future, perhaps we’ll have the financial resources to pay you -- right now we can provide you with tremendous exposure in a place that welcomes fresh thinking. We reserve the right to show your piece on this site for as long as we see fit and to use it to promote the eGullet Society in any way we can think of, but 90 days after we publish it, you are free to flog it elsewhere, with our best wishes.

We're not like a print journal, where your work gets published and that's the end of it. Think of anything you write for the Daily Gullet as the beginning of a conversation: part of the deal when we publish you is that you'll participate enthusiastically in the eG Forums follow-up discussions. Since only eGullet Society participating members can take part in eG Forums discussions, you'll need to be a member in good standing.

If you’re an experienced writer -- we hope you know who you are -- send a query and sample (links are fine), unless you are in the middle of a long fact piece. In that case, you might prefer to submit a detailed outline. First-timers should send manuscripts or detailed outlines.

Length: Take 750 words as a minimum. If your article is just that good, we don’t have a maximum word count –- we’re not killing trees.

Art: Please provide at least one photograph, if possible. If not, give us an idea of what sort of graphic you’d like to see, and a clue as to where we could find reference material.

Style Guide: Make life easier for our hard-working editors -- follow this link to The Daily Gullet Style Guide.

The eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters is committed to the “Letters” portion of our name and our mission. We look forward to reading your submissions at dailygullet@egullet.org.

Edited October 17, 2009 by Dave the Cook
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