Write for Us!

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Write for Exilian Articles

Exilian Articles needs YOU! We're always looking for more volunteer contributors to our regular article posts, the more the merrier.

We're especially looking for articles on the following areas:

• Creators discussing their technical and creative processes with reference to their own work
• Creators outlining and introducing their settings and inspirations and the roots behind their projects
• Academics (amateur or professional) giving popular-end discussions of their work or interesting topics for creators, designers, and the general public
• Other interesting discussions of topics around culture, science, fiction, writing, tech, and geek crafts, especially where these have unusual or interesting twists or introduce whole new topics to our readers
• "Geek humour", especially that which focusses on science, history, creative & development processes, etc

Of course, having a read of what's already been posted is probably the best starting point for seeing the sort of tone and articles we want to get! No particular prior experience of writing is needed, and we're happy to provide support with proofreading, so if you're a creator who's never done article writing before then there's no need to be shy about coming forward. Article writing can be a great thing to practice and a good way to engage new audiences with what you're doing.

Exilian Articles is here to support independent creative work and links between that and other arts/academic areas. As such, submissions should ideally be in a public-facing style rather than being academic essays, and we encourage writers to think about what parts of their work may be of interest to other creators and designers, be that useful tips from current creators on design work, or historians highlighting material culture or story-focussed elements that may be interesting for game developers, and so on. Creative submissions are welcome on occasion but are not the focus of this section, and we encourage people to share their creative work in The Storytellers' Hall (poems and stories) or The Artisans' Guilds (music, drama, art, comics).

It should also be noted here that whilst we will accept some pitches of this type, we try and avoid having too many posts relating to major fandoms, as we're particularly here to support the obscure, unusual, unknown and unexpected and to give creators a chance to introduce people to their own settings!

If you have any queries related to this, or to the submission guidelines below, please post in this thread and we'll be happy to answer.


Submission Notes And Guidelines

• Ideal submission length ca 800-2000 words, though shorter or longer pieces will be considered.
• Images may be included: we strongly prefer to use images that are public domain, clearly appropriately creative commons licensed, or where copyright rests with either Exilian or the post's author. We are happy to help identify relevant public domain images to illustrate articles where helpeful.
• Writers are encouraged to use but not over-use links in their pieces: these can include links to their other work or commercial products, but these should be used specifically where these are under discussion in the article. One or two links to e.g. a writer's wider portfolio may be added in an addendum underneath the main article text.
• All writers must have an Exilian account by time of article posting (so we can show the post as being yours). Whilst it is not strictly required, we do encourage writers to engage with community discussions under their article once it is posted.
• All submissions should be sent to megadux[at]exilian[dot]co[dot]uk. If you wish to format your own post in BBCode, please do, but we're happy to format it for you. If you're not doing your own formatting, please send us any images you want to use, with captions if you have them in mind, and ensure that you give us the URLs for any links you want included.
• Please state when submitting whether you want to be credited under your real name or a pseudonym, or both; our standard practice is to credit people under their forum username. We reserve the right to reject submissions: if you want to know whether we'll accept a submission on a certain topic, we're happy to reply to queries either by email or posted in this thread.
• We provide a full editorial review of all work submitted, including copy-editing and other edits for clarity, and suggestions where appropriate on the text. Usually this is a two-round process with an initial round for larger suggestions and queries and then a second round for final minor copy-editing. We reserve the right to make very minor edits after the final round to fix typographical errors or improve formatting.
• We do not accept any work written not by the submitting author or authors: by submitting to us, you confirm that the work you submit is entirely your own. This includes that no submissions should be written or part-written by generative text models. Images displayed with the article should, if not by the author, be available under a clear license. Images produced by generative models are likewise not acceptable. If there is a clear need for the article to use content from generative models, for example for illustrative purposes, this should be made explicit and must be explicitly cleared by the editors before the article is accepted.
• We can only provide financial compensation for writers as per the bursary rules below: Exilian is a non-profit organisation and all the writers and editorial staff for Exilian Articles do so as volunteers. We appreciate that this may limit some people's ability to contribute.

Writing Bursaries

• We offer two levels of writing bursary, intended to encourage and support article writers, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds or who might otherwise be financially unable to contribute: these are set at £25 and £40 (GBP). We appreciate that neither level approaches full compensation for the average time taken to produce an article: these are honoraria and set as a balance between wanting to support writers and our own limited financial situation as a volunteer body.
• To apply for a bursary, please email megadux[at]exilian[dot]co[dot]uk before writing the article, noting your article pitch, the level of bursary requested (£25 or £40), and any aspects of your background or situation that you wish to be taken into consideration. If you have a previous writing sample you can send or link to, we'd also appreciate seeing that.
• Articles written for bursaries must fulfil our usual submission guidelines, in particular being a minimum of 800 words. They will also go through our usual editing process.
• We are unlikely to give out multiple bursaries to the same person within the same year, to ensure that we can effectively promote a wider range of writers. We cannot provide bursaries to every possible writer, and through necessity we are more likely to be able to accommodate non-bursaried or lower rate bursary posts. If we have a high volume of applications, we will firstly prioritise improving the diversity of our writers, but we also reserve the right to take into account engagement levels with the community and fit of the pitch with our current article output.