HOW TO PITCH US A STORY

Journalists, writers: our pages are open to submissions! We are always happy to receive them and we always write back. Don't hesitate to submit your pitch by writing to clarence@gaze-magazine.com. To guide you, here are some tips...

Gaze is the magazine celebrating female perspectives, a space for the stories, ideas, experiences and creations of women and non-binary people.
All texts are written in the first person. We are looking for singular perspectives, subjectivity, embodied narratives. Tell us who you are and how you you are linked to your topic, it's essential to us!
Our content is detached from current events: everything we publish must still be relevant 2 months, 2 years after it’s printed. Don't rely on the news or the trendy phenomenas, we avoid them.
We like to have an intimate take on every story: Gaze is not a magazine which dissects the feminist concepts, nor a magazine of debate, rather a door of entry into feminism through life stories.

We consider the female gaze to be a new way of understanding the world and telling stories. We are not only interested in "feminist topics". With a fresh and well-crafted idea, all themes can have their place in our pages, without restriction!

We like to work with authors who know their topics well: please submit stories that you are an expert on or that you know better than others because they concern you.
It is important for us to bring together very different signatures and points of view: we seek diversity in the people who express themselves in our pages.
Please submit topics that fit our table of contents. Below are the sections for which we collaborate with freelancers.

ICON

The Icon section features profiles of women we consider icons, because they have left a remarkable legacy behind them, and a mark on our lives: Shere Hite, Kathleen Hanna... This very personal and touching piece tells as much about the biography of the icon as it does about the unique bond the author has with her, whether she has met her or not.

To pitch a story for this section: tell us about your icon, propose an angle that highlights the impact that she had in your life. Explain the link that unites you to her.

Démarquez-vous

Quel que soit le cas, la façon dont vous racontez votre histoire en ligne peut faire toute la différence.

PAS DE DEUX

In the Pas de deux section, we create encounters between two womxn who are linked to a topic, but live it in very different ways: we have Habibitch and Germaine Acogny talk about decolonization through dance, Nancy Huston and Bertoulle Beaurebec about what it is to exist through the male gaze, etc. It is not a debate, even less a fight: we seek to point out what separates them and brings them together in a benevolent conversation where gentleness prevails.

To pitch an interview for this section: introduce each of them and explain the topic that you want to explore by having them meet each other. Avoid duos that are too similar, that think alike or are part of the same circles: what interests us is otherness.

GONZO

This section hosts "gonzo" (i.e. very incarnated) onsite reports. On the front line in Dombass (Ukraine), in Yerevan (Armenia) in search of one’s roots, in the four corners of France meeting lesbian grannies or immersed in a feminist wrestling group in England... Our gonzo stories are lived and experienced by their authors, who share what they see and hear without putting aside their intimate link with their field.

To pitch a report for this section: pitch us the topic, specify the relationship you have with it and give us details on its actual feasibility.

Female Legacy

The Female Legacy section is dedicated to crossed interviews of mother/daughter or grandmother/granddaughter duos. Each time, a theme is addressed through the moving discussion of our duos: the search for love, social decline, having a transgender parent, etc.

To pitch a story for this section: introduce us to the duo you have found and the angle you want to give to the discussion. They must be accessible and willing to be photographed.

HEADSTRONG

In this section, we publish profile pieces of women or non-binary people who inspire us - Rokhaya Diallo, Delphine Desane... These are subjective profiles: what interests us is the encounter, we want to read your piece and feel that we’re in the room.

To pitch a story for this section, please present us the background, the singularity of the person you would like to portray, and of course the angle you have in mind. An access to her is a big plus.

Art Herstory

In this section, we rewrite art history by giving a voice to the women portrayed in classical paintings. It is a text written in first person, in which the muse becomes the storyteller. The articles of this section are written by art historians or authors who are specialists in art history.

To pitch a story for this section: choose a painting, tell us a few words about it and tell us the story of the woman who is represented in it, how you would like to bring her to life.

Flash forward

In each issue of Gaze we publish an exclusive anticipation short story: a writer propels us into the future, in a fiction that has a woman or a non-binary person as the main character.

To submit a story for this section: send a pitch that presents your idea, your character and the future in which they are set. For this section, it is essential that you have already written, or better yet, published fiction.

Free topics

We publish in each issue several off-format topics, i.e. that don't fit in our recurrent sections.

It can be an essay (for example, online activist and social networks expert Elvire Duvelle-Charles, who wrote a piece about the censorship over female bodies on social networks ; or Marion Olharan-Lagan, who directed the design of Amazon's voice assistant, who wrote a piece about the voices of tech, and why they are more often feminine when they are made to serve us; or Pauline Verduzier who tells the story of the discovery of her mother's pregnancy diary, which she found at a time when she was considering becoming a mom herself... ). It can also be the place for other styles of writing: poetry, fiction... Anything can work if the idea is good.

Or, we interview a woman and tell her story for her, in the form of a verbatim (for example Ina Modja, who told us about the rituals she created to reclaim her body after her excision; or Isabelle Adjani who told us what it feels like to be a walking fantasy; or Allie Zentwirth, a young trans woman, who told us about her new life after leaving her ultra-orthodox Jewish community).

To pitch a story for this section: anything goes! We value the most surprising, new, moving, enlightening subjects... or those that allow us to discover someone from a new angle.

PHOTOGRAPHERS, ILLUSTRATORS, HOW TO BE PUBLISHED IN GAZE ?

In Gaze, we work with images in two ways: by commission and by purchase. In both cases, it is essential for us that the images fit in with the visual identity we are developing. The person is also chosen for her connection to the story.

When we work by commission, it is a collaboration process between the magazine and the artist. She receives a brief that explains the story, our editorial and visual expectations, as well as technical details such as the deadline and the budget. An exchange of moodboards can be set up.
For certain stories, we research and purchase existing images.
Lastly, in our portfolio section, we publish 10 pages on the work of photographers who tell the world through their gaze. We’re not only looking for topics related to women or feminism, it is the point of view that is important to us: integrating one's own intimate viewpoint in the approach to a story.

How to get known by us? Send a portfolio to laura@gaze-magazine.com introducing yourself and indicating your genre of choice (portrait, still life, fashion...), or presenting a personal series that could be included in the portfolio section.

3 WAYS to make sure that IT does’nt WORK OUT:

Submit a story without ever having read our magazine
Start with "Hello Sir"
Forget to introduce yourself: in Gaze, writers can not be replaced by one another, we genuinely want to know who you are!

Talk soon! :)