Wayfare Submissions

ESSAY PITCH GUIDE

What is Wayfare?

Wayfare is a publication from Faith Matters that seeks to be a companion and guide on the journey of faith. We publish weekly through our newsletter as well as in semiannual print issues.

What Wayfare is looking for

We publish a range of original writing and artwork: essays and poetry; short fiction, book, film, and art criticism; interviews, dispatches, and profiles; illustrations, paintings, and visual expression; miracles, sermons, and more.

We are looking for pieces that are rooted in faith and spirit, but don’t have to be explicitly religious. They are rather the flower and fruit of spiritual roots.

Wayfare writing is ideally characterized by curiosity, expansiveness, thoughtfulness, playfulness, humility, and a commitment to faith, hope, and charity through beautiful language.

We accept contributions from all faith traditions.

Word length will depend on the genre, but for essays and reviews, 800-2000 is a good target.

What Wayfare is not

Apologetics, culture warfare, clickbait, open letters, academese.

What are you waiting for?

We look forward to talking with you about your pitch to see if we can work together on a draft that could grow into a great essay.

Essays

Poetry

Fiction

Wayfare magazine publishes new, original fiction that speaks to faith and spirituality.

What we want to see:

Short: Although we have no cap on word count, we prefer to see pieces less than 3,500 words. Flash fiction is always welcome.

Original: Your voice and your story are important to our community! We welcome fiction of any genre, and we love seeing new and diverse voices from a variety of cultures and faith traditions.

Spiritual: Wayfare was founded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we welcome stories rooted in that tradition. We also aim to address spirituality in a way that can also be appreciated across broad religious traditions. As our thirteenth Article of Faith says, “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

Note: “Spiritual” does not necessarily mean “devotional.” We want fiction that engages with spirituality in new and interesting ways, and that works to inspire by some subtle or unexpected means.

Submit your fiction with a short cover letter to wayfarefiction@gmail.com.

Visual Art

Artists, we’d love to feature your work in both our print and digital publications.

Please write to wayfareeditor@gmail.com with a link to your portfolio.

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TOPICS OF INTEREST

(non-exclusive, inexhaustive, ever-expanding)

• The experience of religious life

• Embodiment and anti-human technology

• Life, mortality, and natality

• Sacramental ways of being

• Race and identity

• Relationship of religion and science

• Dating, marriage, and parenthood

• Sexuality and sensuality

• Secularism and modernity

• Notions of progress

• Contemplative practices

• Material inequality

• The long arc of life (post-children)

• Work and labor

• Pop culture

• Rites of passage and rituals

• Leisure in modern life

• Art production and consumption

• Relationship of the religious life to politics

• Food production, preparation, consumption

• Community formation

• Transformation (personal, relational, communal, global)

• Relationship to nature

• Climate change and environmental stewardship

• Identity and agency

• Aesthetics and beauty

• The virtuous life

• Chaos, order, and growth

• Language

• Our experience of time (past, present, future)

• History of ideas

• Mental health, therapy, and psychedelics

• Travel and pilgrimage

• Transhumanism

• Scriptural interpretation