We are always on the lookout for good reflections, ruminations, articles and essays, and will find ways to get them published a.s.a.p. Please send texts and inquiries to zeteojournal@gmail.com. Submit manuscripts in Word and include a brief bio and a short paragraph summarizing or introducing the piece. Maximum length is approximately 20 pages double-spaced.

As for what we are looking for—

• Zeteo is Reading (ZiR) and Zeteo is Looking and Listening (ZiLL) mini-essays. For more see here! Increasingly this is our focus, on these reflective pieces which dialogue with and call attention to other texts, sights, sounds.
• Essays and research papers that offer the fruits of interdisciplinary scholarship and reflection to our well-educated, reflective readers. See our current call for papers.
• Exploratory pieces by established scholars, essays and papers by independent scholars and writers, and promising student work.
• Pieces that take a generalist approach and span more than one discipline.
• Vigorous prose—jargon-free, in intelligent, conversational English!
• Work that combines the political, personal, and intellectual.

We like writers who are interested in writing for a generalist intellectual audience and who bring a passion to their work. 

Please note that we do not publish personal essays, fiction or poetry. And, on the positive side, we seek to respond politely and quickly—in weeks rather than months—to submissions and queries.

One idea currently on our minds: Many, many people earn their livings from organizations that behave in various reprehensible ways (stealing and lying being the most common). Drug companies come quickly to mind, but they’re hardly alone. It would be great to find someone who has been so employed and who could combine personal experience and reflections with reading in sociology, psychology and perhaps ethics, and then write a piece that talked about the effects of being so employed. What does it feel like, year after year? This would require a writer of rare sophistication and courage who did not need to defend his ego or to project her personal feelings and actions onto others, but who can both own the “difficulty” of her position and discuss how it affects the rest of his life.

Ongoing interests:

• Connected multiplicity—a phrase we have borrowed from John C. Meagher’s Shakespeare’s Shakespeare. We are interested in essays that, in lieu of a relentlessly focused argument, explore various paths, and allow readers to find unexpected connections and to relax in the pleasure of reading and thoughtfulness. We are also, btw, admirers of focused arguments, but Zeteo means to seek, and we want it to offer a port of call for intellectual explorers.
• Camouflage. We are living in a world in which people, corporations, governments, and political groups are disguising themselves (including, at times, from themselves). Zeteo staff, for instance, are working in a range of fields—from Africana, Latino, Jewish and American studies; to ethics, fashion, film, and work and family; to women’s, gender and sexuality studies—which reveal how transformations of the self can be essential for survival. At times it’s not the strongest, but the most versatile or adaptable who survive. We want to see how interdisciplinary scholars and writers are exploring, defining and perhaps engaging in camouflage.

Publication Procedures

1. If a manuscript is selected, it may be published in one of our bi-annual issues, or it can be published as an independent piece or book review, upon completion.
2. Typically, accepted manuscripts go through a two-stage process: revisions, often substantial and in several stages, and copy-editing, rigorous but straightforward. Writers have the final say regarding any changes, but we push for corrections, improvements and further explorations.
3. We often find ourselves asking writers to adapt their prose for “generalist intellectual readers,” avoiding jargon and technical terminology, and reaching out to curious readers trained in disparate fields.
4. Often, too, we ask writers to prepare “nut graphs” that tell readers clearly and concisely what the piece is about, why the subject is of interest, and how the piece will be structured and explore its points. The piece itself might wander and explore, but the nut graphs would let the readers in on the secret: this piece is going to wander and explore.

The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. Writers are urged to consult the Manual when preparing their manuscripts.

For detailed information regarding manuscript preparation (including punctuation, footnotes, non-sexist language, that-which and so forth), please see the detailed Zeteo Style Guide, currently available in version 3.1. Please note, however, that this guide has been prepared above all for our editorial staff. We are not looking for contributors who are expert copy-editors, we are looking for writers! This does not mean we are prepared to do all the work for our writers. If, for example, a piece includes footnotes, we will expect the writer to prepare them completely and properly. (See these pages from the Style Guide on Zeteo Footnotes and Bibliography.) We are prepared to help with this process, and we do not insist that every piece have footnotes or a bibliography. Again, and again, we are looking for vigorous writing above all.

Contributors and other readers of the Style Guide should feel free to submit comments and suggestions for improvement to the Editors at zeteojournal@gmail.com. These will help us produce a new and improved versions.

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