How to Pitch The Flytrap 

The Flytrap is currently closed to pitches and will reopen in the second quarter of 2025. Keep an eye on our Bluesky (and our newsletter!) for announcements regarding our next pitch window.

The Flytrap is a media collective focused on feminist cultural criticism that responds to and engages with cultural phenomena, rejecting 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. Please familiarize yourself with our work before pitching.

We do not accept completed drafts as part of the pitching process. Pay for accepted pitches is .50 cents/word for written pieces, and starts at $350 for art. If The Flytrap chooses to kill an assignment after unproductive rounds of revisions, edits, and/or notes have been sent to the freelancer and subsequently returned to the editor for further review, we pay a 50 percent kill fee and you are free to take the piece elsewhere.

Please do not submit to The Flytrap simultaneously with a number of outlets: We want original or exclusive submissions. Please also use our pitching form even if you have an established relationship with an editor: For equity reasons, and to ensure no one falls through the cracks, we want to make sure everyone goes through the same process.

Got a tip for The Flytrap that you’d like to share? Email info at theflytrapmedia.com.

Pitching Tips

Include a brief summary of what you want to write or make art about—and not just, “I want to write about feminism.” Tell us what kinds of questions are guiding your reporting/storytelling, what kind of intervention or contribution your story will make, or what about your proposed piece offers a fresh perspective. 

Distinguish between a topic (a broad theme) and a story (a specific, and ideally new, focus within that theme). “I want to write about the ocean” is a topic. “I want to write about squid” is getting closer. “I want to write about how the growing market for calamari in Alabama is affecting populations of squid—and the creatures who depend on them for survival—near the Marianas Trench” is a story! (It probably wouldn’t be one for us though, sorry.)

For more straightforward reported stories or features, why is this reporting urgent now? Also, what are your proposed sources for interviews? If you have sources who need to remain anonymous or pseudonymous, please alert us in advance and explain why.

What to Expect When You’re Accepted

Please send your draft as a shared Google Doc with editor privileges enabled.

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 to copy edits 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. 

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

If linking to a long document or video in a footnote, please also include the page number or the timestamp.

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 copy editing 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.  

When you file your story, please also send along a headshot and short bio for your author page. Before we can pay you, you must also provide us with a Form W9. All published writers or artists will be provided with a complimentary one-year “Friends of the Flytrap” subscription.

Ready to Go?

We’ll let you know when we’re open for pitches again!

We’re looking forward to hearing from you and working together to bring more feminist cultural criticism that you and we want to read into the world.