Sixty invites you to submit ideas for our first publishing theme: “Recipes.” 

Deadline to submit: September 29, 2026, 11:59pm cst.

Over the summer of 2026, Sixty’s editorial team met to assess our publishing over the past year and determine what we want to prioritize as we move forward. We are excited to announce that Sixty has decided to pilot biannual publishing themes as an invitation for writers and readers to better understand our editorial team’s interests, preoccupations, and burning questions so that they can pitch complex, thought-provoking projects that help us create an artistic canon that aligns with the liberated world we seek.

Inspired by our ancestors and caretakers who pass down knowledge across generations, we ask you to consider what “recipes” you want to pass down to future generations. We urge you to interpret this theme broadly. For example, what cultural practices bring you and your community together, or disrupt the status quo? What are the ingredients needed to bring people together to move us to to build something new, steward something along, or tear something defunct apart? If the recipe is the inquiry, then what needs to be brought together for us to find an answer? We invite creative approaches to these questions that explore them literally or conceptually. 

We believe that Sixty’s collective of artists, writers, and archivists are best positioned to discern the tools that will help us respond to and take action during the extraordinary challenges of this historical moment—to create recipes that allow us to cook up something new, something familiar,  something delicious, mouthwatering, and irresistible. 

Open call: September 9–29, 2026
Editorial review: September 30, 2026
Each submission will receive a response by October 15th.

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Pitching Guidelines

Eligibility:

This open call is open to anyone based in the Midwest region of the US.

What we’re looking for/Pitch Tips:

We are looking for pitches that meaningfully engage with this theme “Recipes.” We want to publish writing that meaningfully captures the lives and work of artists, archivists, and culture workers within Black, Indigenous, Queer & Trans, Disability, and Migrant communities throughout the Midwest. Projects that are specific in their scope, subject, and engagement with the theme will be prioritized. 

Examples topics:

• propose a literal recipe or set of instructions;
• use the idea of a recipe as a structure to think through research or practice;
• identify ingredients necessary to build a political, cultural, social, or collective condition;
• gather together people, histories, resources, tools, texts, memories, or practices;
• explore what artists, writers, cultural workers, or memory workers can contribute to a particular project or possibility;
• begin with something deeply personal and use it to consider larger collective questions;
• experiment with form, structure, voice, or genre.

Submission Materials:

Please submit the following through our Typeform.

1. Working title
Your proposed “Recipes” title.

2. Pitch Description
A brief description of your proposed piece. Tell us what you want to make, what ingredients you are thinking with, and what the piece might explore.

3. Description of your approach to the theme
Tell us a little about your relationship to the subject, research, practice, or question at the center of the piece.

4. Tell us about yourself
A short bio and any relevant links to your work.

We encourage you to write your pitch in whatever form best communicates the idea. The proposal itself does not need to follow a traditional essay format.

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Steps towards Publication After Your Pitch is Selected:

We will determine the number of pitches accepted based on the available budget, the strength of the submissions, and their connection to the project’s theme.

Writers whose pitches are selected will be paired with a Sixty editor to help shape their piece for publication. Each writer will meet with their editor for at least 15 minutes, via phone, Zoom, or another agreed-upon format before moving into the writing process.

Each published piece will also be paired with a featured header image created by a Sixty image maker for the series and a short introductory blurb connecting it to the larger project.

If you have questions feel free to send us an email at writeforsixty@sixtyinchesfromcenter.org.

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