Writing

Writing from The Sun has won the Pushcart Prize and been selected for the Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories anthologies.

We publish personal essays, fiction, and poetry. We tend to favor personal writing, but we’re also looking for provocative pieces on political and cultural issues.

We encourage submissions from writers of color.

Surprise us; we often don’t know what we’ll like until we read it.

We rarely run anything longer than seven thousand words; there’s no minimum length.

We discourage simultaneous submissions.

Writing is a solitary act, but when what you’ve written goes out to our loyal subscribers, it can feel a little less so.

Interview pitches

The Sun publishes interviews with innovative and provocative thinkers. We like interviews that stretch us intellectually yet remain accessible.

We’re always on the lookout for voices not traditionally heard in the mass media and are particularly interested in interviews with women and people of color.

We publish only question-and-answer-style interviews: no profiles.

Before you conduct an interview, send us a brief summary of the person you want to interview and what topics you plan to cover. What stands out about them? Why would a Sun reader be interested in them? (If you’ve already done the interview, we’d still like to know a little context about the person.) We’d also like to see a set of 15–20 sample questions that you’d ask. This helps us get a better sense of what direction you’d be taking the interview.

Transcripts should be at least six thousand words and can be as much as fifteen thousand. In-person interviews are best.