Publishing Your Writing
Compiled by Chhavi Jain (curator, writer, and cultural worker, GAC 2023), Jen Liese (Director, A&L), and Mira Dayal (artist, writer, and coeditor of Track Changes: A Handbook for Art Criticism), Winter 2025
So you want to publish your writing? Maybe to contextualize your studio practice or to find community or to share that big idea and know how it feels to address the public in a meaningful way. Now you might be wondering: where and how? It helps to begin by researching the kinds of publications where your writing or imagined text might fit in. Your own interests and tastes are a good guide, but cast your net widely. Visit the Library’s periodical shelves or bookstores or find publications online.
Here are a few ideas to get you started. If you see one that piques your interest, read their recent material, review their submission guidelines, or seek out editors’ contact information. Reach out with a query or pitch, letting them know who you are, what you’d like to write about, and why you’re the one to tell this story. If you have relevant previously published writings, share those, too. Yes, cold emailing is fine, as is a follow-up if you haven’t heard back for a while. (And yes, A&L tutors are would love to help you craft your pitch, give you feedback on drafts, and brainstorm about your publishing aspirations.)
RISD/Brown Student Publications
These publications are expressly here to welcome and cultivate student voices. They’re a good place to begin if you haven’t published your writing before, especially as you will likely want some published “clips,” or writing samples, to share with other, non-academic publications later. Through working with these publications, you’ll also get a sense of the editorial process.
v.1 • volume-1.org • v1@risd.edu
“v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. v.1 strives to create space and time for conversations across diverse disciplines, cultures, and perspectives. Its form and content are endlessly flexible.”
v.1 publishes Fall, Wintersession, and Spring print and online editions; submissions are rolling (see homepage for a link). They accept all matters of RISD student writing— “essays, critiques, manifestos, interviews, comics, poems, opinions, art/language projects, and ideas ranging from the raw to half-baked to overcooked.”
Visions magazine • visions-mag.squarespace.com • visions@brown.edu
“We imagine VISIONS as a safe space for nuanced conversations—one that is warm to the touch yet unafraid of the cold. One that floats between spaces, world builds, and creates a new mythology of ourselves. One that contains multitudes in its whimsy. From glass sculptures to short and sweet haikus, we ask you to engage with this zine and imagine a world of collective liberation with us. Scribble in it. Collage with it. Rip a page out and give it to a friend.”
Visions publishes Fall and Spring print and online editions. They review submissions through open calls via their website each semester. In the last 25 years, they have been committed to bringing in more voices from Asian and Asian American communities. They have a fun theme for each call; last Spring they celebrated “whimsy” in inhabited spaces. Look out for open calls for submissions on their website!
College Hill Independent/ Indy • theindy.org • theindy@gmail.com
“The College Hill Independent [Indy] is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Our paper is distributed throughout the East Side, Downtown, and online … we publish 20 pages of politically-engaged and thoughtful content once a week. We want to create work that is generative for and accountable to the Providence community—a commitment that needs consistent and persistent attention.”
The Indy’s politics are “open” and “leftist” and it “strives to disrupt dominant narratives of power … [and] produce work that is abolitionist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist, … to generate spaces for radical thought, care, and futures.” Students often serve not only as writers, but on a large and collaborative staff.
Brown Political Review • ppe.brown.edu/student-programs/brown-political-review • brownpoliticalreview.org
“Brown University’s entirely student-written and student-run, nonpartisan magazine for political journalism. Their guidelines for a great pitch include: an original angle, a specific and interesting story (BPR likes all things “niche”), a strong thesis which presents a normative claim, and something that has not been widely covered in major news media, supported with empirical evidence that demonstrates your command of the topic and leverages your unique perspective as a college student writing about domestic or world affairs.”
Brown Political Review publishes a print magazine four times a year and updates their website daily with new articles, interviews, and multimedia content. The organization is home to a staff of over 140 students working in all aspects of magazine and online content production, and has a new theme or “special feature” in each issue.
desi-gned Magazine • designed@risd.edu
“desi–gned is New England's first publication for the South Asian diaspora: a compilation of the living archives of ingenious craftsmanship, subaltern histories, and current contemplations, of untold stories that need to be shared.”
desi–gned is a print magazine that publishes annually and encourages contributions from South Asian students, in relation to diasporic experience. They do not have a website, but if you’d like to see the kind of work they publish, you can borrow a copy from the Center for Arts & Language and reach out to the editor.
Grad Thesis Writing Anthology • jliese@risd.edu
In 2024, all final-year graduate students were invited to submit excerpts of their thesis writing for a Grad Thesis Anthology. Jen Liese and Anne West of A&L and Kobe Jackson (GAC) together edited and published these excerpts in the form of abstracts, origin stories, research, musings, project descriptions, and exchanges. The first edition featured short writings by 60 graduating students. Get your copy at A&L and keep an eye out for a call for submissions for their next edition in March 2025.
Next-Step Publications
If you’ve started publishing with one of the platforms above, you’ll likely have clips to share already. If not, you can share a writing sample from an academic paper or a draft of something similar to what you’re pitching. Some of these publications receive a high volume of submissions, and may take 1-2 weeks to reply to queries. In general, they also expect a pitch to include a “peg”—a current or upcoming event, exhibition, or larger reason for the coverage to seem urgent or timely.
Boston Art Review • https://www.bostonartreview.com/
“Boston Art Review “facilitates discourse about contemporary art and culture through publishing, programming, and events in Boston and beyond. Boston Art Review elevates diverse perspectives while bridging gaps between criticism, coverage, and community engagement. Boston Art Review‘s print magazine is published twice annually while the online platform regularly features interviews, reviews, profiles, critical perspectives, and other multidisciplinary content. In addition to publishing, Boston Art Review produces the only weekly curated arts calendar for the region, co-presents the Emerging Boston Art Writing Fellowship program, and hosts community events.”
In addition to outlining a pitching process to aid prospective writers, Boston Art Review offers opportunities for mentorship through an months-long emerging Boston art writing fellowship.
Journal of Art Criticism • journalofartcriticism.com • journalofartcriticism@gmail.com
“JAC is the first undergraduate journal in print devoted to art criticism. Founded in New York at Barnard College during the fall of 2015, the journal is published annually to include critical writing and art centered around a contemporary theme. Connecting the ideas of students across institutions, the journal is also a network of young and established critics. While students create, review, and edit work for JAC, a group of alumni and professionals support production.”
Journal of Art Criticism seeks submissions from undergraduate students annually, in January. They welcome submissions of 1,000-3,000 words discussing contemporary art—from painting to performance, relational aesthetics to sculptural installation—that engage critically with some dimension of their annual theme. JAC printed copies are stocked in New York at McNally Jackson, Printed Matter, Perrotin Bookstore, A.I.R Gallery and are collected by the Barnard College Library and the MoMA Library.
Maake Magazine • https://www.maakemagazine.com • info@maake.org
“Maake Magazine is an independent, artist-run, limited edition print publication and online resource showcasing the work of emerging artists. Our goal is to exhibit innovative and experimental contemporary artwork and foster conversation and community. We hope to support the expansion and reinvention of traditional disciplines of art and making, where media and methods converge and cross boundaries to create unique combinations. We explore the place where fiber, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, painting, digital, design and more come together to create exciting and groundbreaking work. We also actively promote the work of featured artists via social media, printed issues, and on the blog.”
Maake Magazine publishes biannually. They send out an open call for submission on their website and social media in September/October. They encourage writers from anywhere in the world, working in any/all media to apply. You can subscribe to be on their mailing list on their website (linked above).
Hyperallergic • hyperallergic.com/submissions
“We are always looking for fresh perspectives from freelance contributors, especially those who come from historically marginalized communities.”
Hyperallergic sends a daily newsletter with art-related coverage. This New York City-based online magazine accepts year-round submissions. It is a good idea to sign up for their newsletter to get a sense of the work that they do. According to their website, “to pitch, get familiar with their recent topics, tell stories from around the world, be sure it hasn’t already been done and keep it short.” They accept reported stories, photo essays, opinions, remembrances and obituaries, personal essays, humor and comics. Their standard base rates are $250 for short reviews, essays, articles (~400-600 words); $500 for longer reviews, features, essays, reported stories (~800+ words).
Shenandoah • shenandoahliterary.org/submissions
“Reading through the perspective of another person, persona, or character is one of the ways we practice empathy, expand our understanding of the world, and experience new levels of awareness. Shenandoah aims to showcase a wide variety of voices and perspectives in terms of gender identity, race, ethnicity, class, age, ability, nationality, regionality, sexuality, and educational background. We’re excited to consider short stories, essays, excerpts of novels in progress, poems, comics, and translations of all the above.”
Shenandoah is a web magazine that publishes twice a year. They accept comics, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction and offer the Shenandoah Fellowship for Emerging Editors.
Book Art Review • https://centerforbookarts.org/bar/about
“Book Art Review is a criticism initiative founded at Center for Book Arts in 2020 by Megan N. Liberty, Corina Reynolds, and David Solo. It includes a magazine, workshops, and other community engaged programs that seek to build a better and more expanded landscape of criticism for the book arts.”
If you’re interested in writing specifically about artists’ books, the Book Art Review is one of the few publications to boast that sole focus. Accepting specific types of pitches for an annual print publication (also available online), BAR is an emerging publication run by the Center for Book Arts in New York.
Pioneer Works Broadcast • pioneerworks.org/broadcast • broadcast@pioneerworks.org
“Launched in Spring 2020, Pioneer Works Broadcast encourages radical thinking across the arts, sciences, music, and technology. Broadcast reflects the spirit of Pioneer Works and extends beyond the space’s physical walls in Brooklyn through narrative driven journalism, essays, criticism, ruminations, video, audio and much more. We believe in cross-pollination, experimentation, impassioned arguments, unexpected angles, and evocative writing. We operate under the principle that de-siloing the disciplines and championing a spectrum of voices contributes to a diverse culture that benefits us all.”
Pioneer Works Broadcast accepts concise pitches of about 300 words (answering why this, why now and why us?) and two writing samples, published or unpublished, at their email above. All contributors are paid. The magazine is a virtual and annual print magazine.
Jungle Publics • junglepublics.com • junglepublics@gmail.com.
“This publication is an act of epistemic protest and wild hope. Our ambition is to consolidate a group of insurgent maker-thinkers—radical, multisectoral, interdisciplinary, and committed to the growing call for urgent civic transformation and planetary regeneration. To that end, we intend to build a body of what we call "nexus literatures”—intersectional entry points into critical, anticolonial, and liberatory discourses on art, design, language, culture, policy, and science.”
Jungle Publics is an online blog that accepts submissions on a rolling basis. RISD alumni editors Prateek Shankar and Valerie Navarette encourage work around the themes of Globalization, Planetarity, Anti-colonialism, Trauma, and more. They are actively seeking collaborations and you can pitch your ideas by emailing them.
Artcritical • https://artcritical.com/
“artcritical began its life as a personal website for founder editor and publisher David Cohen. Initially it was to have served simply as a window on the world of a writer and curator with feet and fingers firmly planted in terrestrial outlets—printed publications, solid walls. From the get go, however, Cohen satisfied through these web pages a long-cherished ambition to publish an art magazine, and sought to utilize the immediacy of the web to pursue a different kind of art publishing—avant la lettre, a ‘blog.’”
Publishing features, reviews, studio visit conversations, and event listings, among other formats, artcritical is somewhere between a blog and magazine, with regular contributors as well as other writers.
thisistomorrow • http://thisistomorrow.info/
“This Is Tomorrow was a seminal art exhibition held in August 1956 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, facilitated by curator Bryan Robertson. The core of the exhibition was the ICA Independent Group. It was the interdisciplinary and forward-thinking nature of the exhibition that inspired the ethos and title of this online magazine.”
With international coverage, thisistomorrow has a low volume of publication but a wide range of subjects.
Peer Review • https://peerrreview.org/project/
“Artists operate in a unique ecosystem where work and friendships are intensely intertwined: our coworkers, our competitors, and our audience are also our friends. Through Peer Review, we are trying to materialize these relationships. Instead of framing our own work within institutional art criticism, we want to play with new forms of analysis, coming from our own studio vernacular. We ask you to describe another artist’s work and how it makes you feel.”
If you’re an artist interested in writing about other artists’ work, and interested in having someone write about your work, you might try applying to be part of Peer Review, a publication intended to shift criticism into artists’ hands and try out different methods of responding to artworks. Generally published once a year, the publication is run by two artists and is produced as a small print publication.
More Publications
Here are many more art, design, and cultural publications to keep an eye on as you think about what cultural writing can be and what kind of writer you wish to be.
4 Columns
Afterall
A Public Space
The Amp
Artforum
Art Journal
Art Papers
ArtReview
Arts.Black
Bad at Sports
Bodega Mag
BOMB
Brooklyn Rail
Burnaway
Cabinet
Carla
Chicago Artist Writers
C Magazine
Core 77
The Creative Independent
Creative Time Reports
Cultured
Design Observer
Dialogues
Do Not Research
The Drift
e-flux journal
East of Borneo
Elephant
Feels
Field
Frieze
FORUM+
Grey Room
In Conclusion: A Review of Reviews
Intar Journal
It’s Nice That
Journal for Artistic Research
May Revue
Metropolis
Momus
Mousse
n+1
The New Inquiry
New Observations
Onomatopee
Paper Monument
Paris Review
Primary Information
The Pudding
Rhizome
Sarai Reader
Sculpture Magazine
The Serving Library
Spike
Texte zur Kunst
Triangle House Review
Triple Canopy
Untapped Journal
Variable West
VoCA Journal
The White Pube
The White Review
Whitney Review
Words That Work
Self-publishing Opportunities
Like Prateek and Valerie, you too can make your own website and publish your work. Some popular digital options are Substack, Squarespace, Wordpress, Linktree. You can self-publish zines, artist books, or collections of poems and essays in print with services like Blurb, Lulu, or Mixam. It’s always a great pitch to approach publishers and editors with a prototype.
Many students print at RISD’s Print Shop in the Design Center, which offers many printing and binding options at economical rates. Stop by and talk with one of the monitors or Senior Academic Technologist Hasan Askari (haskari@risd.edu) to learn about options and costs.
To share your publication, ask to leave copies at A&L, the Fleet Library, or Carr Haus. Riff Raff, Small Point Café, and L’Artisan Bakery are friendly towards print initiatives. Farther afield, Printed Matter, the venerable artists’ book store in New York, has a generous open submission policy for considering books for sale.
Art Book Fairs
If you’re looking for ideas for how to compile and assemble your own artist book, who to collaborate with, or who could publish your mockup as a full edition, attending an art book fair is a great way to gather many ideas at once while also meeting fellow artists, publishers, and book enthusiasts. Here are a few regional art book fairs that you could attend or, if you’ve already started publishing several artist books or zines, you could apply to table yourself. Many events are annual, but their application cycles vary.
Unbound at Fleet Library • https://unbound.risd.edu/
A highlight of the spring season at RISD, Unbound “celebrates artists’ books, zines, and experimental printed matter created by RISD students and community, local artists and designers, as well as publishers, artists, designers, and enthusiasts from across the region. Through exhibits and sales, Unbound seeks to inspire conversations around cultural publishing in the Providence community. RISD Unbound is free and open to the public!”
Boston Art Book Fair • https://bostonartbookfair.com/About
Since 2017, the Boston Center for the Arts has hosted an annual Boston Art Book Fair focused on art books and printed material. Their focus is broad, “from top tier national publishers to individual artists making handmade books and zines. Exhibitors include museums and galleries supporting artist catalogues and text-based projects, University-based graphic design, photography, magazines, sound and performance related projects, and more. Boston Art Book Fair welcomes all audiences; from sophisticated art collectors to a teenager buying their first zine.”
Brooklyn Art Book Fair • https://www.bkabf.info/#info
Organized by publisher Endless Editions and hosted at various venues in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Art Book Fair is a smaller-scale annual event “dedicated to showcasing publications and editioned works by underrepresented and emerging artists and writers.”
East Village Zine Fair • https://www.printedmatter.org/east-village-zine-fair-2024
Organized by Printed Matter and the art collective 8-Ball Community, this annual fair focuses on “artists, independent publishers, and collectives from NYC.”
Jersey Art Book Fair • https://www.jerseyartbookfair.org/jab-fair-2025
Established in 2023, the annual Jersey Art Book Fair has hosted “over 100 book artists, independent publishers and small presses from the US and Europe, and representing emerging and established practices across genres.” It is supported by Dense Magazine, focused on design in New Jersey.
Pioneer Works’ Press Play • https://pioneerworks.org/programs/press-play-2024
Giving priority to “independent small publishers,” this annual fair at Pioneer Works has a focus on both art and music: “a weekend-long fair of books, small presses, records, art, ephemera, and publications of all kinds.”
Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair • https://www.printedmatter.org/programs/4-art-book-fairs
An annual, large-scale book fair featuring sections for established art book presses as well as a zine section for more DIY, small-scale publications by artists.
Rehearsal Art Book Fair • https://rehearsalartbookfair.org/
Started in the fall of 2023, this small-scale, volunteer-run fair focuses on “ independent presses, editions, collectives, and individuals from both local New York and around the world … We appreciate the continuous practices of bookmaking as personal rehearsals and revolutions.”
Writing Grants and Residencies
And last but not least, a few opportunities to find financial and temporal support for writing and publishing, now or in the future.
AICA Art Critic Fellowship
Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant
Art Omi Fellowships
Banff Center Visual Arts Residencies (also for art critics)
Burnaway Art Writing Incubator
Core Residency Program at the MFA Houston
Critical Minded
CUE Art Critic Mentorship Program
Emerging Boston Art Writing Fellowship
Furthermore Grants in Publishing
Hauser & Wirth/Art Review Writer’s Residency
Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation Grant for Writing on Sculpture
at Louis Place Art Publishing Practicum
The Milkweed Fellowship
Momus Residencies and Critical Writing Fellowship
Neiman Foundation for Journalism Fellowships
Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest
Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism
Triple Canopy Fellowship and Intensive
Vermont Studio Center
Women’s Studio Workshop Artist’s Book Residency Grant
BOMB, NYFA, the Asian American Arts Alliance, and other organizations regularly compile listings of upcoming residencies for artists and writers.