In The Mood Magazine is a pop culture journal about the things we like to watch.

submissions OPEN

Newsletter: Submissions are always OPEN. We publish 1-2 times a month, and especially welcome timely pieces on new releases or seasonal topics (e.g. horror in October, summer films).

Magazine: Submissions are currently OPEN. We're open for submissions 3 times a year, and issues are themed.

In honour of our 10th issue, we’re getting literal and asking for submissions on film, TV, music videos, and pop culture relating to the number 10! This could look like: Cinema’s 10 Most Ineffectual Therapists, movies with “10” in the title, 10 Times I Fell Asleep in the Theatre, or movies celebrating their 10-year anniversary. At In The Mood, we don’t believe in taking ourselves too seriously, and this might be our least serious theme yet!*

*But on a serious note, please read our full guidelines below before submitting 😉 This special issue will only feature 10 pieces, so send us your best!

- Theme: TEN
- Deadline: April 30th, 2024
- Word count for completed pieces: max 1,000 words for features, max 300 words for film diaries
- Honorarium: $30 CAD for features, $20 CAD for film diaries

💡 Some ideas for inspiration:
- 10-year anniversaries
- Movies from 1910 or 2010 (but not ‘11s to ‘19s)
- Top/Bottom 10 lists
- 10 blindspots (and what you thought of them after watching)
- Movies with “10” in the title (e.g. 10 Things I Hate About You, 10, 10 Items or Less, Ten Years, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days)
- What you loved watching when you were 10
- If you had 10 days left to live, what would you watch?
- 10 times I ___ during a movie (e.g. cried, fell asleep, got horny, screamed)
- First 10 movies you remember seeing
- 10 frames from a movie
- Focus on 10 of something in a movie (e.g. costumes, meals, furniture)
- A celebrity/ famous character dinner party with 10 guests

👇 Please read our full guidelines before submitting:

What We Publish

We’re looking for writers with a distinctive voice, who aren't afraid of getting personal, and who are curious about why we watch what we watch. We appreciate thoughtful analysis but also a playful tone; we want intelligent pieces that aren't too full of themselves. We don't think of ourselves as an authority, but a confidante.

🎬 We publish the following about film, TV, pop culture, and moving image media—click for some examples we love:
‍
‍- Personal essays, non-academic essays
‍- Conversations, roundtable discussions, interviews
‍- Poetry
‍- Round-ups, lists
‍- Experimental pieces, fan fiction, spec scripts
‍- Games, questionnaires
- Visual art, comics
‍- First-person, on-the-ground pieces about going to movies or working behind the scenes
‍- Film Diaries (short personal piece about something you've watched lately)
- Anniversary pieces (but try to think beyond "this movie is still great")
- Works on other moving image media, e.g. music videos, celebrities, commercials, filming locations, interesting areas of the film industry

❌ Things to avoid: 
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‍- Straight up reviews
- Excessive summary
- Academic or overly-formal tone
- Flat-out pans (if something is bad, tell us why that's interesting!)
- Pre-1970s media (unless from 1910 for Issue 10!)
- Clickbait/hot takes

Please explore our past issues and our newsletter to get a sense of what we publish!

How To Submit

‍We strongly prefer completed pieces, but we understand that writing on spec is not a realistic prospect for many writers. With that in mind, we still accept pitches.

👇 Please include:
‍
‍- Completed piece (doesn't need to be perfectly polished!)
‍OR if you’re pitching: a short paragraph on the piece (topic, relevancy, intended word count - 1,000 words max for features, 300 words max for Film Diaries)
- Why you think this is a good fit for In the Mood
‍- 1-2 writing samples (they don’t need to be published)
- Short bio or link to your website

Send Submissions & Queries to:

inthemoodmagazine@gmail.com‍

What then?

We aim to review our newsletter submissions within 1 week. We review all of our submissions at the end of our submission period, after which you’ll receive a response from us with our publication decision.

Please keep in mind that a rejection is not necessarily a reflection on the quality of your work! We get a large number of submissions and only have a limited number of spots per issue, which unfortunately means we have to pass on many great pitches.

If your piece is accepted, it'll go through an editing process. As a volunteer-run journal, we pay a modest honorarium of $30 CAD per feature and $20 CAD for film diaries, sent upon publication. We acknowledge that this is not a market rate, and won't be doable for some writers.

Thanks for pitching to In the Mood, we're looking forward to reading your work. And remember, we love surprises! 😈