If you are a writer, journalist, researcher, scholar, or activist passionate about various issues in Southeast Asia, you might be interested in writing for New Naratif!

We are looking for feature or explanatory articles of 1500-2000 words long, which have to be original and have never been published in any other publication before.

Pitches should be sent to pitches @ newnaratif.com, and they should contain a working title, with an accompanying paragraph of at least 100 words in length, containing:

• What this article is going to be about
• Who/which individual or community in Southeast Asia would relate to this article
• Where/when (e.g. the location/time period of) the events/phenomenon elaborated in the article takes place
• Why it is important for New Naratif to publish this article
• How will this article be written (e.g. Literary research? Interview? Location visit? Survey? FGD? etc.)

Send in your pitch to the above email with the following subject format: [Theme]_PITCH.

Every month, New Naratif invites writers to send pitches under a special theme. So, look out for the announcement of the theme of the month!

Due to an overwhelming number of participants, only writers of successful pitches will be contacted.

Writers should be able to finish the article in two weeks time, and to stand by for at least a week afterwards for the editing process. Published articles will be paid a fee of USD 150~200 depending on word count.

Open Themes

Feeling an itch to send a pitch but your idea does not fit with the theme of the month? Don’t worry! New Naratif is always open to pitches for articles outside of the monthly theme, as long as they fall within the theme umbrella below:

• Democracy (including but not limited to: law and policy making, politics in SEA, elections, etc.)
• Migration (including but not limited to: statelessness, forced displacement, migrant workers, etc.)
• Gender (including but not limited to: queer experience, feminism, LGBTQ+ struggles, sexual/gendered violence, etc.)
• Environment
• Freedom of speech (including but not limited to: civilian resistance and protest organisers, police/military brutality, state sponsored surveillance, state sponsored extrajudicial killings, arrests, and terrors, etc.)
• Press freedom
• Race and ethnicity
• Welfare (including but not limited to: economy, healthcare, housing, etc.)
• SEA history (including but not limited to: historical events in a Southeast Asian country, important figures in a nation’s history, folktale discussions, etc.)

Potential pitches will be shelved to wait for a time when the theme occurs in our calendar, or slotted in our publications schedule should there be a spot available!