Paid opportunity for editorial content

Sound and Music, in partnership with the LGBTQ+ Music Study Group 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 2022. 

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.

Deadline for submissions is Sunday 13^th March at 11:59pm, GMT.

What we’re looking for

We have kept this brief as intentionally open as possible and welcome pitches for explorations, essays, deep dives, interviews, as well as more experimental forms of creative writing. The text you are proposing should be between 1000 – 2000 words.

If you’re looking for guidance, some areas we are interested in at the moment include:

• Queering music collections and archives.
• 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 music in the UK.
• Queer activism, politics and music.
• Mental health and wellbeing for LGBTQ+ composers and music-creators.
• The impact of Covid-19 on LGBTQ+ composers and music-creators.

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

The Keychange Pledge and 50/50 programming

Empowering transgender voices through singing

Together in Difference: Transnational Identity in Music

How to apply 

Give us a quick intro about yourself, a short pitch/proposal (150 words max) about the article you’d like to write, and if possible, any links to some of your previous writing. 

Submit your proposal on Airtable here: https://airtable.com/shr1cCxcHnabVFEvC

Deadline Sunday 13^th  March, 11:59pm, GMT.

To apply you must be based in the UK. 

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, and those who feel they have had less access to opportunity 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 Alex Noble, Executive Administrator: Alex.noble@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.