Deceleration welcomes submissions from freelance journalists, writers, and media producers whose interests fall within the scope of our mission. Pay ranges from $25 per poem or creative piece; $150 for opinion columns and reviews; $250 for shorter explanatory stories, videos, and photo essays; to $0.50/word (or more) for longer-form investigative and time-intensive features. We welcome proposals for short- and long-form news articles, community op-eds, personal or creative nonfiction essays, theoretical/political analysis, calls to action, multimedia content, hybrid concepts (documentary poetry, photo essay), and more. Email your pitch or query to editor@deceleration.news.
Once a quarter we also solicit creative responses (poetry, prose, visual art, sound) to specific themes or topics. See our most recent one here for an example of what we’re looking for. Theme for our upcoming Winter 2026 review is coral reefs and oceans:
Introduce yourself via this short form.
When considering whether to accept a proposal, here are a few key things we look for:
- If topic is environmental, does it explore alternatives, solutions, new approaches or ways of thinking?
- If topic is more closely related to human rights issues (racial justice, Indigenous rights, migrant rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-war/anti-militarism), does it also intersect with environmental analyses (climate justice, degrowth, buen vivir, rights of mother earth, resilience, just transition)?
- If topic is outside intersections of environmental/justice, does it provide new and interesting ways of thinking about political praxis (theory/action)?
- Is the piece grounded in the San Antonio, South Texas, or Gulf Coast bioregion? Or, if grounded in other bioregions/watersheds, does it hold lessons for this bioregion or point to broader global or theoretical concerns?
- Does the piece offer readers a way to act?
Some technical guidelines for submissions:
- Type “Submission” in the subject line and include submission either as a Google Doc (preferred) or email attachment (.doc or .docx format).
- All submissions undergo an editorial and fact checking process. Deceleration reserves the right to line edit for clarity and accuracy, but as much as possible we try to respect the writer’s vision and style.
- If possible, send us a couple good (high resolution) images that can accompany your piece.
- Include credits for any visuals and (if applicable) a caption.
- When possible, include hyperlinks in text body so we know where to link out when formatting your piece for web.
- To aid in verification of references, include a list of sources cited. If you interviewed someone, provide their contact info. If a website was cited, include the URL.
In submitting to Deceleration, you affirm that this submission is your own, original work. If we accept your piece, Deceleration has first publication rights, but all rights return to you after publication. If you later republish your piece elsewhere, we ask that you acknowledge original publication with Deceleration and include the link. Simultaneous submissions are fine, just let us know if your piece is accepted somewhere else as soon as possible.
We participate in story-sharing partnerships with both Covering Climate Now and the Solutions Journalism Network and enjoy sharing our original work with their global networks for Creative Commons republication. But your participation is not required to be published in Deceleration.