Nowhere Magazine: Market Spotlight
For this week’s market spotlight, we look at Nowhere, an online literary travel magazine. Open call for submissions until September 30, 2020.
Nowhere is an online literary travel magazine that launched in 2008. By literary travel, they mean narrative travel pieces with a "strong sense of place, character and time."
The editors say, "We were tired of reading—and writing—marketing-driven travel stories that have taken over much of the travel media world. We wanted to bring back old school, immersive, long-form travel writing like Holiday, Colliers and the Saturday Evening Post used to run. Jack Kerouac was a travel writer back then. Arthur Miller was a travel writer. Hemingway, Faulkner, Jan Morris, Steinbeck and Mary McCarthy were travel writers."
While this market offers money for its writing contests, it is not a paying market for their open calls for submissions.
What They're Looking For
Nowhere is completely freelance written, with 30 percent of stories from first-time writers.
The editors say, "We don't take just anything; submitting is competitive, and our staff focuses a keen eye on narrative, setting, character, story arc, detail, research, reporting and authenticity. With 50 years of editing experience in the travel world on our masthead, the editing process is comprehensive—making your work look its best before publishing. We also nominate our authors for prestigious literary prizes each year."
Their audience wants long-form, complex stories for people who love to read. Nowhere accepts nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
How to Submit
Potential writers can submit stories or poems via their Submittable page here.
The editors say, "We publish traditional features as well as travelogues, journal excerpts, character sketches, profiles, conversations, poetry, reviews, notes, video, audio… We like rich detail, elliptical story lines, unusual perspective, lean, evocative writing and tight collections of perhaps a dozen thematic images. We'd love to see a story about a Kansas City street corner that is significant for some reason. We don't want destination, how-to or service fluff of any kind."
*****
No other market is as open to the freelance writer as the magazine market. From trade and association publications, to special interest magazines, to regional and national consumer publications, editors are looking for writers who can deliver well-researched, reader-targeted articles on deadline. To make it in this market, you want to learn how to identify a magazine's editorial needs and—most important—how to fill them.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
