Submission Guidelines

The Flytrap has collaborated with the National Writers Union on our freelancer policies and encourages writers to join the Freelance Solidarity Project to share rates and resources with other freelance media professionals.

The Flytrap is a media collective focused on feminist cultural criticism that responds to and engages with cultural phenomena and rejects algorithmic editorial strategies. We are looking for unflinching, occasionally provocative, but always engaging and values-driven work. What makes a Flytrap story? We know it when we see it, but think luscious, immersive, challenging, and fun reads that readers can dive into head-first instead of (or in addition to) looking for hot takes, rapid response, and clickbait.

At this time, The Flytrap does not accept unsolicited pitches from artists or writers. The Flytrap may occasionally hold open pitch calls, which will be publicized on social media and announced in our newsletter. 

What to Expect When Working With Us

Once you and your editor have agreed upon the terms of your story, The Flytrap will provide you with a contract to sign and a request for a Form W9 (U.S. contractors) or Form W8-BEN (contractors outside the U.S.). 

Please send your draft as a shared Google Doc with editor privileges enabled. The end of the draft should include a bio. Please also email your editor a headshot (if you would like to use one).

Once your piece is submitted, your primary editor will do a first round of edits, followed by revisions by you (if necessary), and then the piece will go through copyediting and fact checking prior to publication. 

Article formatting: To facilitate our fact-checking process, please footnote any source transcripts or recordings within the doc by linking to a drive or something similar with shared access. 

Please also annotate the draft to include sources for any factual information or assertions contained in the story. For sources that you want to link to in the final published version, include links in the text. For sources you’re providing strictly for fact-checking purposes, link to them in a footnote. If you have any issues footnoting source transcripts or recordings for fact checking, you can place them in a shared Google Drive folder linked at the top of your draft. If linking to a long document or video in a footnote, please also include the page number or the timestamp.

Types of information that will require fact checking footnotes (but are not limited to):

• References to events that occurred in the past or are slated to happen in the future
• Quotes
• Studies, numbers, statistics
• Titles/occupations of people referenced in the story
• References to lawsuits
• References to documents, policies, regulations, legislation, executive orders

Please do not hover in the draft during editing! Even if Google Docs notifies you of edits being made to your document, only address or respond to them once your primary editor has confirmed the editing pass is complete. As the draft moves through copyediting and fact checking, you might receive additional Google Doc notifications. Please ignore them. Your primary editor will alert you via email when the draft requires your attention.  

We provide all freelance contributors with a complimentary one-year subscription to The Flytrap.

You do not need to invoice us: All freelance contributors will be paid 50% of their fee upon acceptance (we have returned your first draft for an initial round of edits, indicating intent to publish), and receive the remainder of their fee within 30 days of publication.