Call for Pitches: Sonic Presents

Due: January 30^th 2023

We’re almost 15. Let’s celebrate!!!! Yes, believe it or not, it’s almost Sounding Out!’s fifteenth anniversary (!!!), and we want to make it a BIG one. If you’re just finding us now, Sounding Out! is the world’s longest running sound studies publication. You can read our prior publications at soundstudiesblog.com We’ve been keepin’ it in the red since 2009 and serving up fresh articles weekly.

And what’s an anniversary without presents?

Our present to you? We’ve got an amazing print collection in the works called Power in Listening featuring updated versions of key articles we’ve published on the site, with topics as varied as technology, listening, popular music, public space, surveillance, social justice, memoir, and activism.

Your gift to us? To help us celebrate, we want your best writing on sonic presents:

—the audible presence of the post-2020 “new normal” (however you want to interpret that)

—the multiple vibratory states of the heres and nows of the present moment: what and how are we listening, hearing, and feeling out there?

—the perceptual gifts—presents—that listening offers in the here and now, even when, especially when, tomorrow remains difficult to imagine.

—how can sound and listening enable us to show up—to be present—in contemporary struggle?

We’re interested in short (3000 words or less) chapters that deal with specifically with what study and experience of sound offers us as we take stock of the present moment. Tell us how it is, get loud, and bring your presence to the Sounding Out! community. Mostly, we are excited to engage with pieces that speak to the moment and reveal to us the many important and unmistakable interventions of sound in our day to day lives. If you have a non-linear, multimedia work or podcast idea for the blog only–we’d love those too! ❤

One group of selected essays will be selected for publishing in our print volume—a bonus gift of content for longtime readers!—and will eventually be published digitally (in shorter form) on  Sounding Out! (after a period of time specified by the print publisher). The print volume will be as accessible as the blog, with an emphasis on use in undergraduate teaching, especially those “intro to sound studies” courses. Some essays will be selected for publication only on the blog. Either way, you will reach a fantastic group of readers. You don’t already have to have published on SO! to submit—we encourage new folks to contribute!—and folks who have already published on SO! are absolutely welcome to pitch new material if we haven’t already hit you up for an update of an older post.

Confirmed authors include: Kemi Adeyemi, Mitchell Akiyama, Gina Arnold, Airek Beauchamp, Tara Betts, Art Blake, Justin Burton, Dolores Inés Casillas, Steph Ceraso, Maile Costa Colbert, Maria Chaves Daza, Chris Chien, Milena Droumeva, Christina Giacona, Amanda Gutierrez, Shakira Holt, Robin James, Rebecca Lentjes, Michael Levine, Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, Asa Lipman Mendelsohn, Nancy Morales, Linda O’Keeffe, Priscilla Peña Ovalle, Andreas Pape, Marlén Ríos, AO Scott, Gustavus Stadler, Dustin Tahmahkera, Benjamin Tausig, Kimberly Williams, Vanessa Valdés, Christie Zwahlen, and more!

Please submit your pitches (300 words or less) via this google form no later than January 30, 2023. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdU_Xng7ljpQe8GTAW0Ti9hmNBlULqpQTenLCYKDAooahc39g/viewform?usp=sf_link

Timeline for Print Publication:

Notifications of acceptance in the collection: February 15^th, 2023

Full Essays Due: June 15, 2023

Revisions: Summer 2023

We plan to submit the entire collection to our press by September 2023. A blind peer review phase by the press will follow.

Timelines for born-digital publication will vary, but they will be sooner than the print projection.

We are always happy to consider pitches if you want to send us an idea before writing the article as well. Inquiries: (Jennifer) jstoever@gmail.com and (Aaron) mobilestudios@gmail.com