In each quarterly issue of Beyond the Bracelet, we publish the best narrative writing we can find within our broad-yet-specific topic area: “stories of the movement from awareness to action.” What does that mean? Well, the work we publish introduces readers to real people who are changing the world in some small or large way, and the real conflicts involved with taking such action. These personal essays or profiles are full of characters and scenes and interesting stuff going on—not just ideas and information. Do the characters have to be professional social entrepreneurs or heads of major NGOs? Nope. They can be, but sometimes the best stories just involve normal people doing abnormally great things in their neighborhood.
Tips
1) Don’t send us the warm fuzzy fundraising banquet version of the story. We’re looking for the literature of reality, with all the scars of authentic humanity showing.
2) Don’t send us overly political, religious, or persuasive essays. There are other magazines that publish this content very well, but BtB is concerned with narrative writing about the basic human (and sometimes environmental) issues most of us (should) already agree upon. You or the people you write about certainly might be motivated by faith or politics—and you should definitely write about it to the extent it fits into the story. But we’re looking for a story, not an argument.
3) Don’t be fooled by the word “stories”. We only publish nonfiction.
4) Write well! We can’t wait to read your best work, in the neighborhood of literary creative nonfiction or long-form narrative journalism.
5) We only accept pieces between 500 and 5,000 words.
So that’s who we are. If your piece is a good fit for our pages, submit it using the following form. We will get back to you via email as soon as we can.
Note: Submit soon for your work to be considered for our inaugural issue.
