We are not currently accepting pitches. Please keep an eye out for updates on our Twitter or Facebook page, or sign up for our Newsletter. 

This ten-point pitch guideline is designed to help people who have never pitched learn one way to do it, and to help people who have pitched for other publications learn how best we like to receive pitches.

1. First things first, read our About page! We are primarily concerned with publishing work by marginalised people, and as such prioritise those voices above work by those whose platform is already supported by the publishing industry at large. This doesn’t mean we’ll never publish pieces written by a Cambridge-educated white guy, it’s just significantly less likely. Please do not Abigail Fisher us in response to this.

2. You can either pitch to hello@3ofcups.co.uk where it will be reviewed by one of our team, or directly to a particular editor. Our interests and e-mail addresses are on our Who We Are page. We receive a lot of pitches to hello@3ofcups.co.uk, so please be patient!

3. Unless you are certain you can write a killer subject line that will make one of our editors laugh or cry or clutch their heart in a gesture of profound nostalgia, the following form is preferable:

Pitch: [Anthology Title] – [Form]

For example, if you want to write a poem for On Bodies your subject heading would read:

Pitch: [On Bodies] - Poem

4. Briefly introduce yourself. Tell us who you are and why you’d like to write for 3 of Cups and, crucially, why you’d like to write for a particular anthology. NB: this is not so you will tell us how great 3 of Cups is, but why you want to be published by us.

5. Tell us what you’d like to write for us. Many people suffer anxiety and many people have a body, but we want to hear what you have to say about those experiences.

6. If you’re pitching work you’ve not yet written, we’d love to see a clear and concise paragraph describing your piece. We also recommend sending links or files of your previous writing (if you have any) and/or a few paragraphs or stanzas of the proposed piece.

7. If you’re pitching something you’ve already written, please include a short paragraph about how you think it fits with the brief, include a link to your previous writing, and attach the piece. We cannot publish work that had been published elsewhere, be it in print, online, or on your personal blog.

8. Please include the word count of your piece or proposed piece. The maximum word count is 3,500 words, but we are also interested in receiving shorter experimental work. As well as prose, poetry and creative non-fiction, we are interested in receiving manifestos, lists, vignettes, sentences, scripts, and monologues.

9. Of course, we also want to see illustrations, photography, sketches, drawings, paintings, and photographs of your installations or sculptures. Because of the abstract nature of a lot of artwork, it would be extremely helpful if you included with your image a description of how you think it relates to the theme. Please also include details of your website, flickr, and/or instagram.

10.  We are a very small team. Some of us have full-time jobs, some of us have part-time jobs, and some of us have ridiculous time-consuming hobbies. We will try to get back to you quickly. If it has only been 24 hours, please do not chase us to see if we’ve read it. Please do not forward your piece to another editor if the one you pitched to hasn’t responded. That said, if we’ve not responded in a week, please do feel free to give us a gentle nudge.

Thank you!