Sound and Music is looking to provide UK-based writers, researchers and thinkers with a space to platform their unique ideas, voices and views on queer music, sounds and the people who make it, as part of an editorial series to be published on the British Music Collection later in 2023.  

For this opportunity we are looking for pitches that speak broadly to emerging and/or historical issues related to sexuality, gender and queerness in new music theory and LGBTQ+ composers working in Britain. 

Successful proposals will be paid £150 and have their work uniquely hosted on the British Music Collection online as well as shared via our social channels and newsletter. 

Extended deadline for submissions is Wednesday 12^th April at 11:59pm, GMT. 

What we’re looking for 

We have intentionally kept this brief as open as possible, and welcome pitches for explorations, essays, deep dives, interviews, as well as more experimental forms of creative writing. We’re looking for 800-1,000 word pieces. 

If you’re looking for guidance, some areas we are interested in at the moment include:
 
         · Queering music collections and archives. 
         · Queer spaces, activism, politics and music. 
         · LGBTQ+ figures who are absent from the British Music Collection, or dominant musical histories more broadly.  
         · Intersections of gender and sexuality with class, disability and race in the production, dissemination and consumption of new and experimental forms of music in the UK. 

To see some examples or editorial we have commissioned on the British Music Collection recently, take a look at: 

· Desire Lines: Queer Theory, Microtonal Practice
· Herself to her a music: Emily Dickinson
· The Musical Possibilities of Queer Spaces

How  to apply  

We’ll ask you for a brief author bio, a short pitch/proposal of your idea for the article  (150 words max),  and, if possible, any links to some of your previous writing.  

Submit your proposal on  Airtable  here: https://airtable.com/shr5JPOP6msYmFMt4

Extended deadline Wednesday 12^th April at 11:59pm, GMT.

You must be based in the UK to apply.  

For this call we would like to hear from those who identify as LGBTQ+ but actively encourage proposals from people who are also D/deaf, disabled, neurodiverse or with long-term health conditions, those from low-income or ethnically diverse backgrounds, those who feel they have had less access to opportunities or who have experienced barriers or discrimination due to a protected or other characteristic.    

You can find out more about our commitment to creating open and inclusive opportunities by reading our Fair Access Principles.   

If you have any questions or would like this document in another format, please contact Grace Bailey, Executive Administrator: grace.bailey@soundandmusic.org 

Please note that this is not a promotional opportunity for individual  artists, but rather a place for broader thematic pieces.  Similarly, we not looking for papers written in highly technical or theoretical language. If your proposal involves developing texts you have previously written in a scholarly context, please consider how you might make them more accessible for a more general and wider audience.