Informed, intelligent, engaged and engaging writing (ergo, engaged thinking) is the hallmark of PopMatters. Our writers are cultural generalists with a broad range of interests; thus, our scope is broadly cast on all things pop culture. However, you don’t always have to write a 2,500-word essay to capture (and keep) our interest. PopMatters blogs, which are very popular with our hip, informed readership, run the gamut of topics in culture, and we’re looking for people who love to blog about all the world’s cultural offerings. Indeed, we encourage you to explore all mediums, and express most thoughtfully on all that you see, hear, read, play, watch, do.
The World of Pop Culture
You’re always trolling the Internet and coming across interesting videos, songs, movie trailers, photos and more that you’d like to share. Welcome to Mixed Media, a newsy forum (and very popular), devoted to showcasing the best and most interesting new media along with your brief commentary. A sense of humor is always good, here.
Music
Whether you shake your butt like a fool, stand still, braced, as your heart pounds wildly, or prefer to be the one making all that beautiful noise, you want to write about music. Sound Affects applies our patented, smart, deep look at culture within the more informal blog format. Here you can critique new videos and songs as well as highlight old favorites; you can select and highlight some of the best music writing on the web and analyze trends and events in the music world. This is your platform.
Television
You know that some of the best entertainment writing is happening in television, and so do PopMatters readers. That’s why they go to Channel Surfing to catch our thoughts on all things TV, from highlights to analysis of TV programs to the art (or artlessness) of commercials, from deconstructing a script to scrutinizing a performance, from contrast and comparison of other shows, past and present, to the business behind the scenes.
Film
You stand in a long line on opening night. You catch movies at the matinee price. You see the same film several times, watch anything with (name your favorite actor) in it, anything by (name your favorite director). Film lovers rejoice! PopMatters Short Ends & Leader blog is your platform for waxing poetic about this gorgeous, multifaceted medium and all the world’s artists who compose with this complex instrument. What more need be said? Well, you tell us…
Books, Magazines
You inhale, with eyes closed, as you fan the pages of a newly published book. You get goosebumps as the light of a (you name the electronic device) hits your retina with all those little symbols loaded with such meaning. You prefer the company of a really good book to an evening at a noisy bar. Gawd, you love books and people really should hear what you think about this author, that genre, that publisher, this series. Now push your reading glasses up your nose and dive in to Re:Print. We’re all eyes.
Games
You know that games are enormously popular throughout the world and have created entire virtual communities unto themselves. Like complex puzzles? RPGs? First-person shooters? Action games? Geek out with fellow gamers and adventurous readers who wonder what all the fuss is about on Moving Pixels.
Comics
You also know that comics often convey cultural meaning and artistic merit of a depth and breadth that make the best of them far too sophisticated for just any kid. Your platform on PopMatters is our Graphic Novelties blog, where kindred spirits of the medium mingle.
Exhibits / Lectures / Performance
Whether you’ve had the privilege of traveling to a major cultural event in another country or simply walked down to the corner bar and caught a surprising new band, Notes from the Road is the venue for commentary on virtually all forms of creative expression available to the public; concerts (stadium rock / orchestral / polka bands at ethnic fairs), art exhibits, dance from Swan Lake to Stomp!, lectures on topics in culture—whether it appears in a tiny theatre or on the grandest of stages—here is where we cast our spotlight on such things.
Media
Question Authority. Scale the walls of the ‘fourth estate’. Challenge this incestuous medium. Sources Say is the place to shine a light on the dark places of that which we assume to be true, because we heard it in the news. It’s also a place to praise the mighty deeds of good reporters, and respect the struggle—present and past—which allows the media to survive to this day (in all its permutations) when so many in power would like to silence it forever, or at least mold it to fit their needs.
PopMatters Blogger Benefits
Your byline and your voice published on this prestigious magazine with an international readership of 1 million monthly. Furthermore, many of our writers are called upon for their opinion by notable members of the media such as the BBC, NPR, MSNBC, Radio Australia, and VH1. Major newspapers, TV shows and respected web sites regularly pick up links to PopMatters articles and post quotes from PopMatters writers. Our articles are also indexed by all English language Google News sites and by NewsNow in the UK.
To Apply
We’re looking for people who can commit to at least two posts per week of varying lengths. Some posts are essays and wind up getting feature treatment on PopMatters, while some are several paragraphs and others just the briefest, but smart commentary and/or curation. If accepted, you are free to write for any of the blogs that you wish and, indeed, we are always looking for the sort of cultural generalist who can write on a range of subjects.
Please send a e-mail describing your background, along with two recent writing samples that display the depth of your thinking and the best of your abilities, and two posts that would be your first published PopMatters blog posts if you are accepted, to:
Sarah Zupko, Editor & Publisher editor at popmatters dot com and Karen Zarker, Senior Editor,zarker at popmatters dot com, Subject line: PopMatters Blogger Application.
Deadline: None. This is an open call.