Leya Tess
Pitches for the labour issue are due July 7, 2025.
Every year, for our November/December issue, Briarpatch publishes an issue devoted to reporting stories about the labour movement. This year, we’re looking for articles, investigative reporting, historical analysis, photo essays, timelines, personal essays, reviews, profiles, recommendations, lists, humour, comics, and art for the issue.
Your pitch should outline what ground your contribution will cover, give an estimated word count, and indicate your relevant experience or background in writing about the issue. If you haven’t written for Briarpatch before, please provide a brief writing sample. Send pitches to pitch[at]briarpatchmagazine.com.
Before pitching, take a look at some of our back issues to see what we have recently covered. Please review our submission guidelines and a guide to pitching Briarpatch to improve your pitch.
We’re looking for submissions that dissect complex, multi-layered stories and angles. Below is a partial list of suggestions, and we invite submissions beyond the themes listed here.
- The legacy of the Regina Riot and its contemporary relevance
- The role of unions in decolonial struggle
- Why unions matter; learning from militant labour tactics of the past; rank-and-file movements as a democratizing force
- Labour in the Maritimes; the Territories; rural regions; on reserves
- International workers’ solidarity; Indigenous–labour solidarity; solidarity with unorganized workers
- Precarious work; gig economy; temporary foreign workers
- Cyber-proletariat, online labour, labour surveillance technologies, labour standards in tech industries
- Impacts of growing ubiquity of AI on labour and environment
- Investigations into the business lobby, corporate practices, deregulation, and corporatization of non-profits
- Labour and environmentalism
- Labour and abolition
- Queerness and labour
- Zero-work; anti-work; anarcho-labour
- Tax reform; debt forgiveness
- Temporary foreign workers and the new faces of labour
- Labour leadership
- A just transition for workers; investments in green jobs and renewables
- Working class art and culture
- Reproductive labour; care work; gendered work; invisibilized work
- Labour and the body; occupational health and safety; disability and work; COVID-19
- The future of labour organizing in Canada
- Labour themed reading list
We aim to reply to every pitch – including those we reject. However, because of time constraints, this isn’t always possible. If you don’t hear back from us within three weeks following the pitch deadline for the issue that you submitted to, please assume that we won’t be accepting your pitch. Feel free to pitch us again, though!
Our rates are as follows:
$150 – Profiles, short essays, book reviews, and parting shots (generally 1,500 words or less)
$250 – Feature stories (generally 1,500-2,000 words) and photo essays
$350 – Research-based articles and investigative reporting (generally 2,000-2,500 words)
If your pitch is accepted, first drafts are due August 11, 2025, with an intensive collaborative editing process lasting until the second week of September. We reserve the right to edit your work (with your active involvement), and cannot guarantee publication.
