The desks, the doors, and the inboxes that keep this publication running — for readers with a tip, writers with a pitch, and partners with a sensible proposal.
An independent publication and newsletter. Reader-supported membership, no programmatic ads, no native content, no sponsored editorial.
We route every message by hand. Sending your pitch to the press line (or vice versa) costs us both a week. The three addresses below are monitored by named editors.
Letters to the editor, corrections, tips, complaints about last Friday’s essay, or a sentence you wish we’d written. Read by Miriam Halberg, Editor-in-Chief, and Devon Quist, Literary Editor.
[email protected]For the fastest reply, include the essay title and the section in the subject line.
For writers with a 400-word pitch and a contrarian thesis. Commissioning editor Sasha Mendel reads this inbox on Tuesdays and Fridays. Full guidelines appear further down this page.
[email protected]Paste your pitch in the body of the email — we do not open attachments at this stage.
Media requests, syndication inquiries, podcast bookings, university lectures, and cross-promotion with compatible publications. Handled by Communications Lead Theo Park.
[email protected]For phone interviews, please email a window of availability and the outlet you represent.
The Contrapuntist has published 312 long-form essays across 14 editorial verticals since March 2019. Every one of them argued the unpopular side of a question most outlets had already agreed on. If that prospect excites you more than it alarms you, read on.
Send the result to [email protected]. We answer within ten business days. If you have not heard from us in fourteen, please write again — messages do occasionally go astray.
Ten business days, almost always. Commissioning editor Sasha Mendel reads the submissions inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings. A reply — which may be a request to see a draft, a polite decline, or occasionally a question — lands by the end of the following business day. If fourteen days pass in silence, please write again; mail occasionally gets caught in transit.
Long-form essays run 2,800 to 5,400 words, with a mean of roughly 4,100. We pay a flat editorial rate scaled to word count, plus a kill fee if a commissioned piece is set down. Shorter pieces — our “Reply” column runs 900 to 1,600 words — are by invitation only, drawn from writers who have already appeared in our pages.
Yes, for thirty days from the date of publication. After that window, you are free to reprint or syndicate the piece yourself. We retain a non-exclusive right to keep the essay in our permanent archive and to include it in any future anthology of our work. We do not demand all-rights transfers, and we do not claim ownership of ideas, arguments, or the underlying reporting.
Rarely, and only in two cases. First, a “Reply” piece responding to an essay we have already run, even if the original reply appeared elsewhere first. Second, an out-of-print or archive-only piece by a writer whose body of work speaks for itself and whose republication here would be a documented event. Send the second category with a note explaining why the time is now. We will not consider work that is presently live on another English-language site.
Still uncertain? Write to [email protected] with your question in the subject line. Sasha reads those, too.
Tuesdays are free. Fridays are paid. Both arrive in the inbox before anyone else sees them on the open web. Choose your tier, change your mind at any time.
The Contrapuntist Media, LLC · Established Brooklyn, 2019
