What We're Looking For 

Essays, features, interviews, criticism, reported pieces, humor, experimental work, fiction, poetry, visual arts. 

Strong pitches have a clear point of view, a specific angle, and a reason they belong in Fruitslice. 

We're especially drawn to work that is curious, specific, politically aware, emotionally honest, or difficult to categorize. 

Ideas still in development are welcome. 

Before pitching, please check that your topic hasn't already been covered by Fruitslice.

What to Include

• Quick introduction
• Writing sample or 1–2 links to previous work
• Working title 
• 1 to 3 paragraph pitch summary 
• Estimated word count 

Submission Limits 

Up to three pitches at a time. Submit each pitch on a separate form. Wait at least three months before submitting again.

Who Can Pitch 

Fruitslice publishes work by Queer writers, artists, critics, and cultural workers. We use "Queer" broadly and will never ask you to explain or prove your identity.

What Happens Next 

Every submission is read by our editorial team. We don't send individual rejections or status updates. No response doesn't mean no interest. Your pitch may stay in our database for future consideration. If we want to move forward, an editor will reach out directly.

A Few Things to Know

• All work must be original, unpublished, and exclusive to Fruitslice
• No AI-generated writing
• Fruitslice is entirely volunteer-run and we cannot offer payment at this time

Notes from the Micro Scene

Year-Round Open Call for Nonfiction Dispatches

Notes from the Micro Scene is a series of short, episodic nonfiction dispatches written from inside small, specific communities. We are looking for writers who can notice the details and drop us directly into the scene. Tell us who is there, what people are talking about, what has changed, and what is funny, tense, beloved, embarrassing, contested, dying out, or just beginning. 

The Inspiration 

This series takes inspiration from Janet Flanner's Letter from Paris, the dispatches she wrote for The New Yorker under the pen name Genêt from 1925 to 1975. Through observations of everyday life, cultural movements, personalities, and local happenings, Flanner chronicled a city from the inside, capturing the small things that made Paris Paris.

With Notes from the Micro Scene, we're interested in extending that tradition beyond major cultural capitals and into the countless smaller worlds that shape our lives. At a time when globalization and algorithms can make culture feel increasingly homogeneous, we want to document the particularities of local communities with their own histories and ways of being.

A dispatch might take us inside:

• A neighborhood group chat with its own alliances, scandals, and etiquette
• The regulars at the only Queer bar left in a small town
• A community in the middle of a generational shift, disagreement, revival, disappearance, or strange new obsession
• A bookstore, café, church basement, Discord server, rehearsal room, club night, sports league, or other gathering place with a culture of its own

What We're Looking For

This is a nonfiction series. We do not accept fiction, invented narratives, or fictionalized accounts for this column. We want true accounts of real communities, written by people who have a genuine relationship to the world they're describing. You might be a participant, regular, organizer, neighbor, employee, longtime observer, former member, or someone otherwise meaningfully embedded in the scene.

A micro scene might be organized around a geographic place, but it doesn't have to be. The smaller and more specific the entry point, the better.

We are not looking for comprehensive histories or traditional reported features. We want particular people, places, moments, conversations, and observations that tell us something about a culture from the inside.  

Submission Basics

Length: 500–1,000 words.

Genre: Nonfiction only.

Submission fee: None.

Payment: Fruitslice is entirely volunteer-run. We cannot currently offer contributor compensation or complimentary print copies. You can read more about our compensation policy in our website FAQ.

Eligibility: Fruitslice publishes work exclusively by members of the LGBTQIA+ community. We recognize that identity is personal and nuanced and will never ask you to explain or prove yours.

No AI: We do not accept AI-generated or AI-assisted submissions.

Please submit one completed dispatch per submission form. This is a call for finished work, not pitches.

File Requirements

Accepted formats: .doc or .docx only.

File naming: LastNameFirstName_PieceTitle.

Please thoroughly proofread your work before submitting.

Cover letters are welcome but not required.

If your work contains unusual formatting, embedded images, screenshots, transcripts, or other elements that may require special handling in print, please explain that in the Other Notes section.

Reporting, Privacy & Other People

Because these pieces are written about real communities, please be thoughtful about the people who appear in your work and consider the potential consequences of identifying private individuals or disclosing sensitive information. You may change names or identifying details to protect someone's privacy, but please disclose those changes in the Other Notes section.

Originality & Previous Publication

Fruitslice generally publishes original, previously unpublished work. If your dispatch has previously appeared on a personal website, blog, social media, or elsewhere, please disclose this when submitting.

We accept simultaneous submissions. If your work is accepted elsewhere and is no longer available to Fruitslice, please withdraw your submission and notify us ASAP. 

For further information about previously published work, contributor rights, our editorial process, and other publication policies, please consult the FAQ on our website. 

Review & Notification

Notes from the Micro Scene is an ongoing, year-round submission opportunity. Our Editors curate a selection of dispatches for each issue of Fruitslice.

Submission confirmation: You will receive an automated confirmation from Submittable when your work has been successfully received.

Editorial review: Submissions are considered on a rolling basis.

Acceptance: If your dispatch is selected for publication, a Fruitslice Editor will contact you directly to discuss the next steps.

Rejections and status updates: Because this is an ongoing submission pool, we do not send individual rejection letters or status updates. If you don't hear from us, your work has not necessarily been rejected.

Future consideration: All submitted dispatches remain eligible for consideration in future issues unless withdrawn by the contributor. 

Withdrawal: If you would like to withdraw your dispatch from consideration at any time, you may do so through Submittable. 

Questions?

Before reaching out, please review the FAQ on our website, which answers many common submission questions.

If you still need assistance, contact us at submissions@thefruitslice.com.